Staff Reporter
Five employees at Clover’s Bloemfontein factory have tested positive for COVID-19, with at least 300 other workers still waiting for their results, the leading dairy producer has confirmed.
The company was last week forced to halt operations at the factory, located along Harvey Road in the provincial capital, after one employee had tested positive for the virus.
In a statement released this afternoon, Clover announced five of its tested employees have so far received positive results.
“Clover confirms that as of today, five employees have tested positive for COVID-19 at its Bloemfontein factory,” company secretary Jacques van Heerden said.
“This includes four cases in the past week and an initial positive case three weeks ago which was unrelated.”
Clover said it was in regular contact with those that had tested positive and with employees currently in quarantine as a result of standard procedures for any person that presents COVID-19 symptoms, as well as those that they have interacted with.
“Dedicated support is in place for them including the provision of food parcels,” van Heerden said.
“At this stage, they are all in a good medical condition, as are their relatives.”
After its temporary closure, the factory was decontaminated and Clover says it may only resume operations after results of the other 300-plus employees are known.
“The production facilities at the factory underwent a series of deep cleaning processes and all staff underwent testing,” van Heerden said.
“Operations have been temporarily stopped whilst the outstanding test results become available and Clover will resume operations in due course with employees who have tested negative for COVID-19.”
The first confirmed case at the company involved a male employee who lives in Botshabelo, according to Free State Department of Health spokesperson Mondli Mvambi.
“An employee of Clover went to consult at Botshabelo Hospital on 22 April . . . He was ultimately tested because he had COVID-19 symptoms. His results were confirmed as positive,” Mvambi said in a statement released earlier Wednesday.
The department then traced and tested about 18 people identified as his household and social contacts.
They all tested negative but have since been quarantined at the Philip Sanders Resort just outside Bloemfontein.
The social contracts included people that he commutes to work with daily.
Mvambi said between Thursday and Saturday last week, the department then conducted on-site contact tracing at Clover’s Bloemfontein factory involving 369 people.
“The Department of Health appreciates all the cooperation that we received from Clover who opened their doors and allowed full access to their premises including enabling the department to test all their employees,” he said.
Meanwhile, Mvambi has encouraged people who have not yet been screened and deemed eligible for testing to do so.
“If you know that you had contact with people that tested positive, or you suspect that that you may have had contact with COVID-19 positive people or environments associated with COVID-19, you are encouraged to present yourself to a nearby health facility for screening and testing,” he said.
As of Tuesday, the Free State had 113 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 76 recoveries and five deaths.