21 Jul 2020

Botswana has records three positive cases of COVID-19 in children.

When briefing the media on July 19, Covid-19 Taskforce Team member, Dr Mogomotsi Matshaba said that among the recorded cases was a six-month-old infant, who had been to South Africa for medical reasons and upon coming back the parents, together with the baby went into a routine quarantine, where they later tested positive for Covid-19.

He said the other child had been living with a parent in South Africa and travelled back to Botswana, where mandatory quarantine was imposed, with regular tests the child was later confirmed positive together with the parents. The third case recorded, which is said to be an incident of local transmission, was where the parent’s job required them to frequent South Africa.

He said that they ran tests on the parent and discovered that he was Covid-19 positive, therefore, they carried further tests on the child and later discovered that the child was also positive.

Dr Matshaba said the child was Gaborone’s Thebe Primary School pupil and their investigations reveals that chances that the child could have transmitted the virus to others at school were low, reason being that the virus was still at an early stage after contact with the infected parent.

He assured Batswana that during the early days of exposure there was no how the child could have transmitted the virus.

Results of contact tracing carried out on those who came into contact with the affected group came out negative, whereas for the primary school case, investigations are ongoing to determine whether there are prevailing cases of the virus, Dr Matshaba indicated.

Another incident is that of an infected parent, who, however, gave birth to a Covid-19 free baby.

Dr Matshaba highlighted that his team had extended the best possible assistance to the baby to ensure that he did not contract the virus.

Dr Matshaba said although children do catch the virus, they  were generally asymptomatic.

He said children were exposed to the risk of contracting the virus by their parents as they were the ones dictating their whereabouts  and how safe they were regarding contracting the virus.

As such he implored parents to  cooperate and take responsibility in making sure that children adhered to Covid-19 health protocols.

Batswana are advised that two-years-olds and above should wear masks in public, and parents should regularly check how comfortable their children were wearing masks. ENDS