The South African Red Cross in KwaZulu-Natal says it is mobilising its teams across the province to begin to allay fears about the coronavirus. Three South Africans in the country have been confirmed to have tested positive for the infection. Two of these are from Hilton outside Pietermaritzburg in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands.
Red Cross acting provincial leader, Siyabonga Hlatswayo, says teams have been trained and they are ready to go into communities to create awareness about hygiene and to calm any fears.
“We’ve had workshop and we’ve started training our volunteers our volunteers being on the ground what they are going to be doing.
“They are going to be spreading the information now in the communities.
“We do not want to cause any panic so the moment you give people information that way you are also controlling panic in the comms because if they are aware of how to control of how to protect themselves then that should calm the situation,” says Hlatswayo.
Meanwhile, the health department says it is anticipating more positive results from the group of people who returned from Italy. This after a third positive coronavirus case was confirmed in KwaZulu-Natal. The patient is the wife of the man in Hilton, outside Pietermaritzburg, who was the first confirmed case.
In this video below wife of SA’s COVID-19 patient zero is the latest local to test positive for the virus:
The man and his wife were part of a group of ten people who travelled to Italy. Nine members of the group returned to South Africa on March the first. The department’s deputy director-general, Anban Pillay, says they are anticipating further positive results.
“… because the city that they were in Italy was one of the high prevalence areas in Italy where the corona virus outbreak was quite high. It’s not surprising that many of them who had visited that area have tested positive. We have isolated everyone who’ve come through in terms of their contacts we hopefully will prevent any further transmission in South Africa itself.”
Health Minister confirms third coronavirus patient:
