Zimbabwe in panic mode...

As mystery over cause of death of an 82 year old rural woman deepens.

Image:Mr Sylvester Nguni and his late mother in happier times.(Source; Sylvester Nguni,Tweeter)

23 April 2020

By Hosia Mviringi

Panic has gripped the Zimbabwean nation after an 82 year old woman from rural Mhondoro community became the 4th and latest victim of the much dreaded Covid 19 pandemic.

The 82 year old mother to a former Zimbabwean cabinet Minister Mr Sylvester Nguni stayed alone with two housemaids and two herdmen in the Zimbabwean rural area of Mhondoro.

Circumstances are that in the period running up to and during the national lockdown which initially ran for 21 days before another two week period was added, none of the Nguni family members visited the rural home from their urban bases and neither did anyone visit the homestead from known Covid19 hotspots in the country.

There is also no record of any outsider ever visiting the family homestead within the same period.

The granny is said to have had other underlying ailments consistent with old agers.However the ailment was not disclosed.

It is said that in the period under review she had a bout of flue which was successfully treated before she suffered another infection.This later led to some respiratory complications prompting the former Minister to rush her to Westend Hospital in Harare.

As is the norm these days for all patients displaying flue-like symptoms the lady was subjected to a mandatory test for coronavirus which came out positive.

It regrettably was too late for effective management of the disease and she succumbed.

The nation is still in shock and panic as authorities battle to track the possible origins of the infection and to isolate all contacts thereof.

The former cabinet Minister and Member of Parliament for Mohondoro Mubaira Constituency Mr Sylvester Nguni confirmed that his mother had no history of travel, stayed in a self-contained homestead with just two maids and two herdmen.

As a precautionary measure the West End Hospital has suspended all admissions until further notice while patients already in admission are using the upper floors with the casualty department having already been fumigated.

Speaking in a telephone conversation Mr Nguni said as a family they are still puzzled.

“We are all still puzzled as to where she could have gotten the virus from. Our homestead is more like a self-isolated facility, which is detached from the rest of the community. She stayed there with two maids and two herd boys.

“None of us were in contact with her since the beginning of the first phase of the lockdown up until now,” said Mr Nguni.

It is therefore a challenge for the Zimbabwean health authorities to trace and isolate all contacts to this case in order to mitigate the spread of the disease in the rural areas.

With the current state of health delivery in Zimbabwe it will be asking for too much if the cases rise in rural areas where a mere clinic is a luxury and connectivity nightmare.

It is an unenviable scenario where the government will have to overstretch the available meager resources for what would become the mother of all crises.

All known cases in Zimbabwe so far were either directly linked to foreign travel or contact with such cases.Thus any localised infections should be a source of a big worry for authorities and and a scare for communities alike.

Meanwhile here are the many possible scenarios surrounding the death of gogo Nguni.

Either Mr Sylvester Nguni is not telling the whole truth considering that he does not ordinarily reside at the homestead in Mhondoro and that he could also be a victim of an untruthful narrative.

It could also be possible that gogo Nguni was infected upon arrival at West End hospital, but this scenario could be remote and far fetched given the generally known incubation period of the virus.

Or in extreme cases the test equipment used could be defective.This would undoubtedly compel the government to consider sending samples to an independent laboratory for corroboration of results, that is if all other leads lead to a dead end.

This puzzle has just got to be solved for the nation to fashion out appropriate interventions and also to calm nerves of a nation already in panic mode.

Zimbabwe has had a total 28 confirmed cases of Covid-19 infections, four of whom have succumbed to the disease and two recoveries.