08 Oct 2020

 In an effort to monitor the intensity and geographic spread of COVID-19 pandemic, Botswana SARS - CoV-2 Sentinel Surveillance team will targets over 43 310 people across all COVID-19 zones.

This was said by Sir Ketumile Masire Teaching Hospital physician and University of Botswana lecturer, Dr Tendani Gaolatlhe when briefing the media recently.

Consultation with relevant stakeholders, among them community leaders, district commissioners and residents started on October 1, while the surveillance, which aims at measuring the prevalence of COVID-19 in the general public started yesterday.

Dr Gaolatlhe said 51 localities; predominantly large and small villages had been selected nationwide, where surveillance would be performed. 

He added that cluster localities representing zones would be randomly selected based on scale of the selected community.

She highlighted that COVID-19 sentinel surveillance sites would include health based facilities, police stations, tertiary institutions, shopping malls, bus ranks, terminals and airports, border posts and commercial banks.

“The surveillance team will cover all nine COVID-19 zones in Botswana, which include Greater Gaborone, Greater Maun, Greater Francistown, Greater Kgalagadi to mention a few,” she said.

Dr Gaolatlhe said that the secondary objective of the surveillance included detecting outbreaks among frontline staff, who are at high risk to COVID-19 due to their occupations, such as disciplined forces, medical and immigration officers.

She also said they would detect outbreaks in crowded areas such as shopping malls and bus ranks, among others. 

Also targeted, she added were working groups and those visiting the high risks sites such as out-patients, in-patients and health personnel as well as public transportation.

Dr Gaolatlhe further explained that they would also identify risk groups for COVID-19 infections along their social demographic divide, home morbidities in those with health problems and describe the severity of COVID-19 infections by risk groups.

She said, “The sentinel surveillance is the active collection of high quality data from a limited number of sites around the country,” adding that the collected data would be analysed, interpreted, disseminated and decision made about the spread of COVID-19.

Responding to questions, she said sentinel surveillance at schools would be undertaken during phase two of the surveillance.

The sentinel surveillance, which was launched recently by the Minister of Health and Wellness, Dr Edwin Dikoloti, will take 12 weeks and has been sponsored by the Ministry of Health and Wellness and other stakeholders involved in the fight against COVID-19. Ends