04 Aug 2021

 A 10-member United Kingdom emergency medical team is in Botswana to provide support and specialist expertise to the COVID-19 besieged health sector.

Speaking at a meet and greet session in Gaborone on August 3, Minister of Health and Wellness, Dr Edwin Dikoloti said the team’s deployment was critical in view of the high number of COVID-19 cases and deaths Botswana continued to record.

The increasing numbers of coronavirus positive cases, Minister Dikoloti said, called for innovative and effective response mechanisms to bring the pandemic under control.

With the increasing delta variant infections, Botswana was facing critical challenges such as shortage of resources including human expertise to cope with growing patient numbers and disease complexity.

"The arrival and deployment of this medical team will undoubtedly add value to the country’s response energies and complement the efforts in the implementation of the response plan, specifically with regards to the management of COVID-19 positive patients,” Dr Dikoloti said.

Minister Dikoloti, who said the assistance had been made possible through WHO and the country’s well established diplomatic relations with Britain thanked the British government for heeding Botswana’s call for support in strengthening COVID-19 case management systems.

He informed his audience that Botswana had adopted a multi-pronged approach  for managing COVID-19 cases where asymptomatic and mild cases isolated at home while critical  ones were referred to health facilities.

Concerning the economic effects of COVID-19, Minister Dikoloti said the pandemic had unprecedented ramifications on Botswana.

"The country’s national resources have grossly diminished and the capacity to address the critical health care needs is extremely compromised," said Dr Dikoloti.

He said the supply of health commodities, especially vaccines, was greatly outpaced by great global demand for the vital commodity.

Dr Dikoloti said he was looking forward to the fruitful collaboration and skills exchange between Botswana medics and the UK team.

Giving an overview of the support programme, WHO representative Dr Josephine Namboze said the initiative worked to strengthen national surge capacities and when needed, facilitated deployment of international classified teams during emergencies, outbreaks and natural disasters.

Dr Namboze noted that since the importation of the first COVID-19 case into Africa in March 2020, the disease had spread all over the continent which had led to the ongoing deployment of medical teams across the region.

She said between February 2020 and this year, 18 team deployments had been carried out in 16 countries in the AFRO region with Botswana being the 17th country to benefit. Ends