HARARE — A suspected coronavirus patient who is a Thai citizen and recently came to Zimbabwe, allegedly bolted out of Wilkins hospital in the Zimbabwean capital where the patient had been isolated ahead of treatment and tests to determine whether he suffered from the dreaded global pandemic.
The patient escaped from the hospital before tests could be carried out on him and his whereabouts are unknown.
Wilkins is a Zimbabwean Hospital in the capital, Harare, run by the city council as an Infectious Diseases Hospital where all suspected coronavirus cases are being referred to.
The Thai suspected coronavirus patient had been quarantined at the Zimbabwean infectious diseases hospital in order for medical authorities to conduct tests on him for coronavirus, a disease that has drawn much attention across the globe.
Before tests for the disease could be done on him, the Thai national somehow vanished from the medical authorities superintending over him at Wilkins hospital, and it is not yet clear how he escaped and the medical authorities are yet to reveal the details.
The great escape from the hospital in Zimbabwe by the Thai national allegedly suffering from coronavirus is coming at a time Zimbabwe’s neighbors, South Africa, have recorded seven positive cases of the feared disease which has so far led to the death of some 3,888 people worldwide, infecting over 111,753 people globally.
However, in South Africa, coronavirus has not killed anyone.
In fact, South Africa’s first patient who tested positive for coronavirus has been successfully treated even though many have been speculating on whether African governments are capable of containing the coronavirus.
The World Health Organization has been on record saying the outbreak of coronavirus was first reported on 31 December last year in Wuhan, a city in China’s Hubei Province.
In Zimbabwe, there has been no confirmed case of positive coronavirus yet, with the country’s Ministry of Health and Child Care just recently issuing out a statement saying it ‘…would like to assure the nation that to date, there is NO confirmed case of the COVID-19 in Zimbabwe.’