Staff Reporter
The Free State Department of Health says it has identified over a thousand people from three different churches in Bloemfontein who may have contracted COVID-19 after coming into contact with infected persons who attended a religious conference at the Divine Restoration Ministries earlier this month.
“The Free State Department of Health has identified 1 259 contacts that have to be traced,” spokesperson Mondli Mvambi said in a statement released on Saturday.
“This emanates from the 480 people that attended the Tuesday worship service at the Divine Restoration Church which had some contact with the international guests that (have) tested positive,” he added, referring to the conference which took place from March 9-11 in Bloemfontein.
The other churches, according to Mvambi, are the Global Reconciliation Church led by Apostle Mohau Rammile; Word to the World whose leader is Pastor Andile Somtseu and the Eagle Christian Church of Pastor KNJ Mophethe.
There are fears that the church leaders, due to the nature of their work, could have interacted with their own congregations without knowing that they were coronavirus-positive.
Mvambi said out of the 480 people who were part of the initial gathering, about 255 were invited to a breakfast service while 155 were invited to a dinner meeting.
“We appreciate that the churches have taken the active responsibility of ensuring that their members know about the infection and that they come forward for screening and possible testing,” he said.
“We have now reached about 973 contacts of whom 773 are asymptomatic whilst 200 are symptomatic with 67 of these being positive.”
Only three people have been admitted to hospital but no one is under intensive care in the province.
“We have . . . collaborated with the private health facilities to increase our number of ICU beds to 320 and 856 for quarantine in some of the hospitality establishments owned by government and 103 beds for isolation. We have the Albert Nzula Hospital in Trompsburg, Senorita Ntlabathi in Ladybrand and Mantsopa TB Hospital (in Ladybrand),” Mvambi said.
The provincial health department has also partnered with the Red Cross who have deployed 40 tracers and plan to increase the number to about 140.
Screening capacity is also set to be increased thanks to the hiring of about 500 nurses with a possibility of engaging community health workers.