With the concerted effort to curb the spread of coronavirus in Limpopo, more than 76 000 people are expected to screened per day during the household screening for Covid-19 in Mopani District through its home-based carers, announced Dr Nora Mongwe, the health district executive manager.

According Dr Mongwe, who spoke during the District’s launch of household screening campaign at Motupa Village outside Tzaneen, accompanying executive mayor Pule Shai, 1 910 community health workers would be deployed to screen a minimum of ten households per a day.

“In this screening campaign each household would be visited by community health workers in the entire district and the health workers would screen each member of the household… the screening will be carried out from April 14 to 25, but if we didn’t catch all the households we will continue,” she says. 

“In our district we have 1 910 home based carers who have been trained, each one is expected to screen no less than ten households per day… and therefore we expect them to have screened 76 400 people per day at a minimum of four people per household and this will continue for two weeks,” says Dr Mongwe.

She adds that they would also be visiting farms and work places within the district catchment to screen essential workers who could not be found during the visits at their homes.

Shai has pleaded with communities to cooperate with the health workers during the door-to-door screening process and adhere to the lockdown regulations in order to contain the virus.  

“We call upon the community to cooperate with the health workers who would be doing the household screening, like the families [whom] we have visited have been cooperative. We were able to gather much details needed for analysis as possible. Therefore the president has extended the lockdown and is only our conduct which will basically help us to ensure that all the livers of the economy are later opened given the scientific advice the president would be given.”

“Social distancing should be maintained during this critical period. And our people… have been complying, cooperating and they are resilient. I suppose by the end of the extension of the lockdown we should be able to count the benefit,” says Shai.

He says that they are reprioritising their budget and redirecting the capital to deal with temporary interventions to ensure that people have to access water. The department of water and sanitation has allocated the district with four water tanks and would also likely hire water tankers to reach the other areas with shortages.

“We have received our JoJo tanks and they are being erected. Our people in areas where there is serious desperation are indeed getting water. We suppose this effort during this Covid-19 will permeate into sustainable delivery of water provision even beyond that.”

Selina Sefoko (65) from Motupa Village, who was screened by the mayor, has embraced the effort of household screening.

“This is a good thing by our government as this will able [us] to know whether we are infected or not. It is [a nice] gesture and it shows that our government really cares about us. I wish people could stay indoors as requested and wash their hands regularly to ensure that they don’t get infected,” she says. – Health-e News 

For more information on Covid-19 in South Africa, you can call the toll-free line on 0800 029 999, or you can send a message that says “Hi” on WhatsApp to the number 060 012 3456. You can also visit the SA Coronavirus website.