14 Oct 2020

The North West District commissioner, Mr Keolopile Leipego has urged the Ngamiland community to participate in the COVID-19 surveillance study and cooperate with health workers.

Mr Leipego made the plea during a COVID-19 survey sentinel media briefing by Ngami Regional Health Management Team (RHMT) in Maun on Monday October 12.

He said the survey, which started October 12 and expected to run until December 31, entailed community testing in the region to monitor the COVID-19 situation for government to come up with interventions to contain the spread of the virus.

Mr Leipego also explained that the increasing number of COVID-19 cases in the country was a concern, which necessitates the survey.

He said there were four isolation centres in Maun being: Matshwane Clinic, Maun General Clinic, Botswana Open University and Botswana Wildlife Training Institute, which was still under renovation.

Mr Leipego expressed concern about people who still ignored the COVID-19 protocols, even though the disease continued to spread.

“Our wish is to see the economy recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic,” he said, adding that this could only happen when all took part in the fight by adhering to protocols and cooperating with health workers.

For her part, Ngamiland RHMT acting coordinator, Dr Sandra Maripe said the aim of the survey was to intensify monitoring of COVID-19 and its geographic spread as well as to measure its prevalence in the general population and mortuaries.

Dr Maripe said the team would  be working with the Okavango DHMT to conduct the survey, which would run for three months. She said in Maun they had identified eight testing sites of Letsholathebe Memorial Hospital, Boseja Clinic, Maun International Airport, Maun Police Station, BOFWA premises, Maun Technical College, Old Mall and the bus rank.

She said for Maun sites they would collect 3 840 samples for the duration of the study, which equated to 300 samples a week, while in Gumare they would collect 522 samples for the period, which equated to 46 samples a week, and for Seronga the target was 180 samples in three months or 15 samples per week.

She said they had identified Gumare and Seronga as their main areas for the survey and in Gumare they would conduct tests at bus rank, Gumare Hospital, mall and mortuary, while in Seronga they would  conduct tests at the mall, clinic and police office.

Dr Maripe said Ngamiland DHMT had received six assistants to help in conducting the survey as well as all the necessary commodities.

Meanwhile, the coordinator of the National COVID-19 Sentinel Surveillance Team, Dr John Tlhakanelo said the survey would focus mainly on frontline workers and high people traffic areas such as malls and bus ranks.

He said the study would enable them to analyse factors such as demographics and severity of the disease.

Dr Tlhakanelo also explained that during the survey they would conduct COVID-19 tests as well as contact tracing and those affected would be quarantined. ENDS