MAUN: Coordinator of the COVID-19 Presidential Task Force Dr. Kereng Masupu is against the idea to relocate boarding students from Ngethu Brigade in Gumare to be used as a fifty-bed COVID-19 isolation centre serving the Okavango sub-district.
Speaking in Maun after touring the Matshwane isolation clinic to see progress at the ongoing construction of a COVID-19 testing laboratory at the site, Masupu said besides being an expensive exercise, there are certain things which should have been observed before the decision was met.
His fear was that their release to join the rest of the community in the village might in a way spread transmission of the disease. He suggested that there should be other alternatives to deal with the situation rather than interrupting students who had already settled at the school as they have no other means of survival.
“I am afraid, if this development is left to take place we might head for disaster. The fact Gaborone has recorded so many positive cases is a result of uncontrolled movements of people which we try hard to discourage. We don’t want to see a repetition of such in areas like the Okavango which are currently regarded as green zones. I will personally make follow ups of this matter and advice accordingly”, he said.
Ngamiland District Commissioner Keolopile Leipego also noted that they are still awaiting a response from the Ministries of Tertiary Education and Health since the two had recently engaged in talks to see how the issue of rentals will be conducted. Another option according to Leipego could be to commission a section of Shakawe Hospital as it is still not operating and has a lot of idle space.
Once commissioned, he said the facility can then be used as an isolation centre for the Okavango region instead of the brigade centre in Gumare. Although it is not confirmed yet, close to eighty percent of students are said to be renting in the village on own account.
Masupu shared that despite COVID-19 being concentrated in Gaborone and surrounding areas, Maun is likely to be at a higher risk since it is a transit area which hosts people from all walks of life, who either lodge in Maun or proceed to other places of interest. As a result, he said the construction of the laboratory in Maun is a commendable effort as it means symptomatic people and suspected cases will be tested locally and receive their results on time as compared to recent months when specimen were taken to Gaborone, thus taking long for their results to be availed to them.
Meanwhile Ngami District Health Management Team Coordinator Dr Malebogo Kebabonye told the task team that because the entire region is at risk, they have pinned their hopes on response staff at the Makalamabedi zonal gate where it is hoped that potential cases if any, will be picked.
“I believe that if we do the best where the risk is concentrated, then we would have protected even the most vulnerable people in Maun and the Okavango region. We have been going around doing sensitization outreaches and teaching the people there about hand hygiene and so forth. On top of that we have set trigger mechanisms through cluster activation which is also bearing fruit”.
She noted that an agreement was made that the laboratory should be at Matshwane clinic maternity wing which she says has never been used for the intended purpose since it was handed over to the Ministry of Health after completion in 2010. To avoid keeping the well-equipped building being turned into a white elephant, she said they decided to operationalise it and use as Youth Friendly Centre which has since been moved elsewhere.
“We have five maternity clinics in the periphery, and besides the one at Letsholathebe Memorial hospital, we have one 24-hour at Moeti ward and is currently the most used”.
The DHMT has also identified other isolation centers at the Botswana Wildlife Training Institute (BWTI), which has pledged a hundred bed capacity and is undergoing renovation. Letsholathebe hospital has offered seventy beds and an additional thirty-two beds at Botswana Open University (BOU) where positive cases have been quarantined in the past. In addition, an eight-bed ward as well as a twenty-four-bed maternity wing at the old Maun general hospital currently awaiting electricity and water connections will be used for isolation purposes.
The Matshwane COVID lab construction is expected to take seven weeks and the handing over is scheduled for the 17th November. Included in the plan is an extraction room, a clean room and a detection room among others. Once the pandemic is over Dr Kebabonye said the laboratory will be repurposed and used for infectious disease purposes.
