EBOLA RISK FOR SD IN ZIM GAMES

MBABANE – As the country prepares to attend the African Union Sports Council (AUSC) Region Five Under-20 Youth Games in December this year, the host country, Zimbabwe’s media, has pointed to loopholes in their Ebola combative readiness following several scare cases.

The games, renowned as the Zone VI Under-20 Games, will begin on December 4-14 with 11 countries from the Southern Africa region out of 15 having confirmed participation, Swaziland inclusive.

However, reports from the host country’s media have strongly criticised the government for downplaying the Ebola issue which they believed it was only a matter of time before they had positive cases, especially with reports of at least 98 suspected patients quarantined in the last two months.
Various media outlets, including websites in Zimbabwe, have taken a swipe at their government for sleeping on duty as far as the deadly Ebola virus was concerned. One of the reasons for this was the Zimbabwean government not having its own equipment to test blood specimens for the virus, instead depending on South Africa which delays the return of results.

A case of medical staff neglecting a suspected patient, a Congolese student in that country, two weeks ago, has not helped the matter as the Independent newspaper reported that this was one of the signs that health workers were not ready to risk their lives and required intensive training.
Possible postponement of the games has also been reported in some quarters but the country’s Minister of Sports, Arts and Culture Andrew Langa last Friday allayed fears of any postponement as there was no confirmed case of the virus yet but several scare cases.

Interestingly, while there is clear mortal fear among the people of the Robert Mugabe-led country, among the invited countries to take part in the games is the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) which is where the virus was first discovered in 1976.

However, currently, the hard-stricken West African countries are Sierra Leone, Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria and the death rate is presently at 70 per cent. They have also put in the spotlight their porous border posts as one reason they expected to have Ebola in the country soon.

Moreover, doctors in that country have given government 14 days to meet their salary demands and other welfare issues or they could striker, worsening an already deteriorated health infrastructure and the existent short supply of the medical experts to deal with the virus.

Meanwhile, the local Sports, Culture and Youth Affairs Minister David ‘Cruiser’ Ngcamphalala when sought could not be reached as his cell phone rang unanswered.
On another note, the games involve swimming, soccer, basketball and judo among other disciplines.

Health and Social Welfare Minister Sibongile Simelane said for now every country should be concerned about the epidemic.
“I have handed all Ebola issues to my technical team led by the Director of Health Services but I know that Zimbabwe is currently having scare cases otherwise no Ebola has been confirmed,” she said before referring questions to the Director of Health Services Dr Vusi Magagula.

Magagula when reached said clearly their advice right now to Team Swaziland was that they have to take all the precautions of the disease while travelling or during their stay in Zimbabwe.

“The truth of the matter is precautions must be taken. You cannot sleep around as it also sexually transmitted and they must avoid fluids contact and wash their hands as often as possible,” he said.

However, he said while they still strictly advised on the precautions, they were well aware of the hit nations currently and Zimbabwe was not among them save for the reported scare cases and the quarantined 98 in the last two months which he said was proportionate to their population.

He added that countries like Nigeria and Senegal have been cleared of the virus while the most hit at present are Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia while DRC has also been able to deal with it over the years now so not among the stricken countries.

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