Govt relaxes mandatory Covid-19 testing

Harare(New Ziana)-Mandatory testing of workers for Covid-19 by companies re-opening under the new relaxed lockdown regime is no longer obligatory, a senior cabinet minister said on Tuesday.

Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister Monica Mutsvangwa, addressing a post cabinet media briefing, said government had relaxed the requirement in view of difficulties companies faced to access Covid-19 test kits.

She said government now only required companies to check employees’ temperature, ensure they wore masks at all times, practised social distancing and regularly used sanitizers at work.

Statutory Instrument 99 of 2020 required companies in the formal sector re-opening to test all employees for Covid-19 using the Rapid Results test.

But Mutsvangwa said it had since been discovered that companies were experiencing difficulties in accessing test kits.

“In order to facilitate companies in the commercial and industrial sectors opening in terms of the relaxation pronounced under S.I. 99 of 2020, Government has decided that, pending companies acquiring the required test kits to test their employees, companies will be permitted to open subject to the following conditions being met in relation to their employees: Temperature tests upon entering work premises; hand sanitizers upon entry to sanitize their hands; each employee to wear a face mask in appropriate form and employees to practice social distancing in the work place,” she said.

In the event that an employee has a temperature which is above that which the Ministry of Health and Child Care considers requires further testing, then such employee shall not be admitted to the work
place, but shall immediately be referred to a facility of the Ministry of Health and Child Care to enable a Rapid Result test, to be administered on such employee.

Mutsvangwa said in the event that the employee tests positive for the Rapid Results test, then the employee shall be referred to a place of quarantine in accordance with the procedures prescribed by the Ministry of Health and Child Care.

“For the avoidance of doubt,companies shall remain under an obligation to subject all their employees to the rapid results tests as soon as reasonably possible during the period of the declaration of the COVID-19 virus as a formidable epidemic disease by the Minister of Health and Child Care,”” said the Minister.

Mutsvangwa said notable progress in the fight against COVID-19 has been registered in the area of research and development.

“The establishment of a local consortium of researchers drawn from IamBYO-Fighting COVID-19 initiative, the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) and the University of Zimbabwe (UZ). The Consortium is working with Tackling Infectious Diseases for the Benefit of Africa (TIBA) in spearheading researches into COVID-19,” she said.

TIBA is an Africa-led research programme that explores and draws lessons from the ways different African health systems tackle infectious diseases in Zimbabwe.

The study will be funded by the British Government through the National Institute of Health Research.

Mutsvangwa said management of the COVID-19 country-specific research efforts would be done under the Government of Zimbabwe Innovation Framework.

“Based on the fight against COVID-19, the research programme will be undertaken within five pillars of focus as follows: Scientific Understanding of Corona Viruses and COVID-19; Biopharmaceutical Engineering; Clinical Understanding of the Corona Viruses and COVID-19; and Biomedical Engineering and Formulation of National Health Strategy on COVID-19,” said Mutsvangwa.

New Ziana