Tshwane intensifies Covid-19 battle in identified hotspots

Pretoria – The City of Tshwane continued to intensify its battle against Covid-19 in all identified hotspots in its seven regions amid growing concerns over steep increases in positive cases in Gauteng.

The City dispersed its ward-based outreach campaign focused on education and screening at the weekend and carried on today at Pierre van Ryneveld Shopping Centre in Centurion.

Spokesperson Lindela Mashigo said this week, the team will visit Regions 2, 3, 4 and 6 to ensure that more people were reached in busy highly populated areas like shopping centres and malls.

From the beginning of April to now, the campaign has recorded an increase in the number of people visiting the mobile screening and testing sites.

In the month of April, the team tested 690 people. In May, the number increased to 755 and so far this June, 783 members of the community have already been tested for Covid-19.

Utalising the City’s services at Pierre van Ryneveld Shopping Centre Kelly Le Roux said she was very surprised by how organised the staff from the City were, in helping the people who came out.

“I am very impressed, I will tell you that. They pushed the people who are sick to the front and started another queue for the people who are over 60. The queues were moving so quickly. I am impressed,” she said.

Thandi Mkhehlani said she just wanted to know her Covid-19 status so she could be aware if she needs to protect other people from herself by isolating or if she was still uninfected and only needed to continue doing her best to sanitise, socially distance herself from others, wear a mask and avoid large gatherings.

Portia Maponya and liaison officer in the office of the speaker in Tshwane said in the past the Tshwane Department of Health used to have to call people to come out for screening and testing but since the number of infections have been increasing people have been coming out voluntarily.

She said: “The turn out is very positive but since the spike in numbers people do not even mind queueing and that was impressive.”

Mashigo added that: “As part of the campaign, the team will also continue to conduct HIV testing, blood pressure monitoring, condom distribution, issuing chronic medication or do referrals to the nearest health facility.”