Staff Reporter
The Free State province has successfully traced about 99 percent of the people who made contact with those who tested positive for COVID-19.
“Our strongest point is contact tracing,” the provincial head of department for health, Dr David Motau, told journalists on Friday at Bophelo House in Bloemfontein when he received 30 tablets donated by MTN to be used for capturing data when tracing contacts.
“If you look at the cases that we have had since the advent of the church incident, the school and all the other cases, we have been able to trace 99 percent of the contacts,” he added.
Motau was referring to countrywide fears for a COVID-19 outbreak in the province in March after five overseas guests at a religious conference hosted by Divine Restoration Ministries in the provincial capital tested positive for the deadly disease.
More than 200 people attended that conference and most of the contacts were successfully traced, screened and tested.
The guests recovered fully and have since returned home.
There was also panic at Brandwag Primary School after the mother of two learners there tested positive for the coronavirus.
The woman is a health worker at a private institution.
The kids however tested negative, but about 600 people, including parents and learners, were screened.
“And out of those cases, we have been able to identify about 223 cases,” said the provincial health HOD.
Motau said while it is likely that the province will be recording more cases of COVID-19, he is confident most contacts will be successfully traced to ensure the disease is contained early and the new gadgets will be key to that work.
“So, this (donation) will help us for policy decisions, development and decision-making and it will also help us in making sure that we contain the spread of the virus,” he said.
“It will also help us in . . . areas of research and development so that we are able to publish as a department together with the University (of the Free State) because everybody now is talking about big data. And if you are not in that space, you are likely to be left behind.”
Motaung said the Fourth Industrial Revolution is now a thing of the past as everyone is looking into big data and what can be extracted from it.
MTN senior manager for enterprise business in the central region Lawrence Mahasa said they found it important to partner the provincial health department as it was at the coal face of the fight against the coronavirus.
“We know the challenges and the speedy . . . actions that the department needs to (take) in order to contain the spread of the disease as well as get proper information on the pandemic,” Mahasa said.
“So . . . we are providing these tablets which we know are going to the frontline people who are out there getting the information, screening possible patients.
“We want these tablets to get to them so that the department can have proper information to make proper decisions in terms of containing this current situation.”
The tablets will be used by community health workers deployed across the province to trace contacts and capture data on the disease, including individual, household and community profiles as well as other information important to responding appropriately to COVID-19.
The Free State presently has 225 confirmed cases of COVID-19.
At least 123 people have recovered while eight have succumbed to the disease.
The province has screened nearly 1.6 million people for the disease and tested 33 165.
About 34 people have been hospitalised.