An unidentified 27-year-old Zimbabwean woman, who works in Huwan city in China hit by the coronavirus COVID-19, has been admitted to an infectious hospital in Harare where she is being monitored by health authorities after showing symptoms of the deadly disease.
According to the Harare City Council’s director of Health Services, Dr. Prosper Chonzi, the woman was among some people who arrived in the country two days ago from the Asian nation where at least 2,000 people have died and more than 74,000 infected by the disease.
Dr. Chonzi says the woman tested negative for coronavirus in China but had to be admitted to Wilkins Hospital as she had a high temperature and as a person who works in Wuhan.
“At the airport she had a (high) temperature and once you have a (high) temperature you then meet the case definition of a suspected case … A positive history of travel from a reporting area or reporting country plus one or two symptoms, so, she met that creteria. So, we had to take her from the airport to our isolation facility at Wilkins Hospital in Harare. She was stable, the temperature was normal, no symptoms, no respiratory distress … We kept her overnight and we still have her at the hospital. Case done today the tests were negative. That will be reported … The test here and the tests in China have been negative for coronavirus.”
Dr. Chonzi says a technical health working team is expected to deliberate on the status of the woman on Thursday while they are also making a followup on some of the people who were on the same flight with her.
“For us right now there is no reason to keep her under quarantine but we will meet as a technical working group. We have a group of specialists that are there to look at all the developments from the time she left China to the time she spent in our hospital then we will come up with a determination tomorrow (Thursday) morning. We would have made a determination by then.” The technical working group comprises physicians, epidemiologists, ourselves (Harare City Council). We are also following up on those who were on the same flight, on the same route (with the admitted woman).”
