Quarantine Inmates Fearful Of Cross-infection
Returnees who are being kept at various quarantine centres across the country are fearful that they will contract the coronavirus within the centres due to the shortage of personal protective equipment (PPEs).
According to Clifford Matorera, the chief director in the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare, the country has so far received approximately 3 200 returnees, who are housed at various institutions countrywide.
Reports suggest that returnees receive two old blankets, one soap tablet, a tissue roll to share with two other people, a shared tube of toothpaste, a 50ml bottle of body lotion, one disposable mask and a plastic water bucket.
Some inmates housed at Harare Polytechnic College lamented the absence of PPEs. They said:
We are fearing for the worst. We do not have anything here and the government’s communication channel is very bad.
We don’t know what is happening and fear we might all test positive at the end of our 21-day quarantine period.
… I wish they could give us basic stuff like sanitisers and masks.
Between the testing and the time the results are released, there is a high possibility that we could be cross-infecting each other.
Recently there was chaos at Harare Polytechnic and other quarantine centres as inmates protested over poor living conditions.