Calls have been made to ensure that there’s no interruption in immunization due to COVID-19 as countries have no capacity to deal with preventable diseases as well as coronavirus at the same time.
As the world commemorated World Meningitis Day on Friday, pharmaceutical company Sanofi Pasteur encouraged parents to ensure that their children get immunized against meningitis.
Meningitis is an aggressive bacterial infection that can lead to death within 24 hours if not treated immediately.
Country Medical Head at Sanofi Pasteur Doctor Nasiha Soofie says, “Meningococcal disease is incredibly challenging to diagnose. Treatment is also ineffective and we are really left with only prevention. So the earlier the diagnosis is made the greater the chance that antibiotic therapy would work. However, it is important to note is that for every 100 cases of meningococcal disease 15 patients are going to die anyway irrespective of whether they received antibiotic treatment or not and irrespective of the timeline.”
The COVID-19 death toll in South Africa has risen to 79 with 4 220 confirmed cases. This an increase of 267 cases and four deaths from Thursday.
Eastern Cape recorded the highest number of new confirmed cases at 63.
KwaZulu-Natal follows with 34 new viral infections and Gauteng has 28 new coronavirus cases.
The four people who died were from the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.
Ramaphosa warns of coronavirus outbreak peak
President Cyril Ramaphosa says there is an expected peak in the number of COVID-19 infections in the coming months.
The spike is expected to occur between the months of August and September.
Earlier on Friday, Ramaphosa visited quarantine facilities in Gauteng.
In the below video, President Ramaphosa visits Gauteng’s 500-bed quarantine site:
Efforts to curb the spread
South Africa went on lockdown on March 27, shutting down certain sectors of the economy and encouraged South Africans to take extra caution to avoid contracting the virus.
On Thursday, Ramaphosa announced that the lockdown would be eased from May 1.
