09 Dec 2020

A wedding is not only a blissful moment for the bride and groom but also a happy moment for their respective families and friends.

Traditionally when a couple gets married every relative old and young come from various places, to witness the union of their son, daughter, sister, brother or cousin as such weddings in Botswana attracted a lot of people.

That being the case the government tried to downsize the number of gatherings to a manageable number of 50 to mitigate against the transmission of the virus and went further to disallow for serving of food at funerals and weddings.

However Batswana tend to have difficulty in adhering to these protocols as they continue to attend weddings and funerals in high number, exceeding the required number.

“Even though it is our culture to celebrate weddings, Batswana have to respect the health protocols,” says Selebi Phikwe Police Station Commander Superintendent Meshack Pulenyane.

He says the police often go round to check if people are complying to COVID-19 health protocols by making stop overs in funerals and weddings and often encourage attendants to wash hands regularly and maintain social distancing.

“The issue of food is complicated because if you find people cooking at a wedding, it is difficult to stop them because you cannot determine whether the food is for the family or the guests.

Health workers on the other hand maintain that large gatherings exceeding 50 people pose a serious risk of contracting corona virus,

“As health workers we are really concerned about wedding celebrations and other events attracting a large gathering because we have cases of people who tested positive who have a history of attending weddings and other social gatherings,” says Selebi Phikwe DHMT Head of Preventive Services Dr Kesegofetse Chabaesele.

Dr Chabaesele narrated that the health workers were currently grappling with covid-19 positive cases emanating from one wedding that was held in one of the villages in Greater Selebi Phikwe zone where 158 people were in attendance, majority of which were from Francistown and Gaborone.

The first COVID-19 case linked to that wedding was identified in Selebi Phikwe where contact tracing was done and her whole family (husband and three kids) tested positive to COVID-19 including a colleague and mother in law.

Dr Chabaesele says a wider surveillance was done and a total of 24 cases were identified including the bride and the groom.

To her dismay another group of people who did not register despite having attended the wedding also came forward for testing and some were found to be positive.

“We took longer to filter the wedding attendees because the register did not have the attendees’ place of residence.”

She cautioned Batswana to always adhere to health protocols and register their names fully whenever attending wedding celebrations. The register should bear names of attendees, contacts and place of residence.

Dr Chabaesele says this makes it easier for the contact tracing team to identify cases as soon as possible to curb the spread of the virus.

The Greater Selebi Phikwe DHMT coordinator Mr Mpaphi Mbulawa also raised concern over limited isolation centres in the zone. He says currently the DHMT managed to secure a 32-bed facility at education centre in Selebi Phikwe and will also refurbish the TB facility with 25 beds at Mmadinare Primary school to augment the little spaces available. Ends