EWN reports that 161 healthcare workers have died from Covid-19 complications in the Eastern Cape since the pandemic reached SA’s shores in March last year.
The province’s health department briefed Parliament’s health portfolio committee on Wednesday on some of the grim realities facing citizens in the province, which is among the most affected areas in the country. The health workers who died in the Eastern Cape were among 9,249 of the province’s medical personnel who have succumbed to infection. The acting head of department in the province, Sibongile Zungu, said: “We do have challenges in the whole province, we have lost staff members and we have a psychosocial support stream.” Although the pace of infections has somewhat improved in the province since mid-December, Zungu said they were picking up other worrying trends. She explained that while cases were subsiding in the Nelson Mandela Bay and Sarah Baartman districts, which accounted for close to 80% of all transmissions in the province, Joe Gqabi District was seeing a rise in cases. Comparatively, when considering the population group in the district, the cases there were much higher than elsewhere in the province.
- Read the original of the report in the above regard by Theto Mahlakoana at EWN
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