The Sunday News
Vusumuzi Dube, Senior Reporter
THE Government will confiscate travelling doccuments of all returnees at quarantine centres in an effort to curtail the number of escapees centres.
The documents will be returned at the end of the quarantine period.
A number of returnees have been reported to be absconding from quarantine centres around the country thereby exposing communities to the Covid-19 pandemic given that the majority of confirmed positive cases has been recorded from returning citizens.
Speaking during a post Cabinet briefing on Tuesday, Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister, Monica Mutsvangwa revealed that Cabinet resolved to implement sterner measures to ensure that returnees do not abscond from the quarantine centres.
“In order to curtail the prevalence of people absconding from quarantine centres, Cabinet agreed that identification and travel documents be collected from returnees on arrival and returned to them at the end of the quarantine period,” said Minister Mutsvangwa.
This comes in to compliment last week’s Cabinet resolution to up security at the quarantine centres to prevent escapees.
Further, Cabinet resolved that people transiting through the country will now be required to produce Covid-19 free certificates before being allowed into the country.
“In an effort to contain Covid-19 imported infections, Cabinet agreed that every person transiting through Zimbabwe should have Covid-19 free certificate and that they be subjected to further testing by PCR upon arrival in Zimbabwe,” said the Minister.
Meanwhile, according to the latest national Covid-19 statistics, the country now has 314 confirmed cases, after 27 samples tested positive for Covid-19 on Tuesday.
In a statement, the Ministry of Health and Child Care reported that all the new cases are of returnees from South Africa.
“27 cases tested positive for Covid-19 today (Tuesday). These are returnees from South Africa and are all isolated.
“515 RDT screening tests and 352 PCR diagnostics tests were done. The cumulative number of tests done to date is 54 535 (32 282 RDT and 22 253 PCR),” reads the report.
The Ministry thus noted to date of of the 314 confirmed cases there are 46 recoveries meaning active cases stand at 264 and four deaths since the onset of the outbreak on 20 March 2020.
