Truck drivers blamed for Zim Covid-19 rise

Takudzwa Chihambakwe

Zimbabwe’s Health Minister Obadiah Moyo has accused truck drivers of contributing to the rise in COVID-19 cases in the country.

Moyo revealed that most of the COVID-19 cases in Zimbabwe are imported with official statistics showing that the country has 31 imported cases and 25 local transmissions.

“We discovered that trucks coming in from South Africa and am sure from other countries are ferrying illegal immigrants,” said Moyo while presenting oral evidence in Parliament earlier today.

“The trucks stop just before the border and the people cross the Limpopo on foot and meet the driver on the Zimbabwean side.

“These individuals are usually illegal immigrants from Malawi staying in South Africa who will now be headed back home. When we stop them, we have to test them and some of them test positive,” he shared.

Meanwhile, the health minister said Government will soon gazette tariffs for testing COVID-19 at private health facilities.

“Because we now have testing in private sector we have to introduce the appropriate tariffs. We cannot afford to have laboratories or health care facilities charging exorbitant prices, it has to be controlled. So we are going to be issuing the appropriate tariffs for a particular test, whether it is rapid or the Polymerase chain reaction (PCR), it has to be controlled,” he said.