At least 200 students, staff test positive for COVID-19 in South Africa According to officials, the pupils and staff tested positive on Tuesday after returning to a boarding school in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province this month. Eastern Cape is the third worst COVID-19- affected province because it makes up 15 percent of South Africa’s 101,590 COVID-19 cases.
The province’s health department announced the outbreak at Makaula Senior Secondary School in the rural town of KwaBhaca, where 204 students and staff members were found infected with the virus. “Initially 24 learners tested positive last week with 180 others, which include hostel assistants, testing positive this week,” the department said in a statement, adding that all had been placed under isolation.
National education department spokesman Elijah Mhlanga said they were among 283 pupils — final-year students — as well as 47 teachers and 42 support staff at the school. The 12th-grade students, as well as their middle school counterparts in the seventh grade, were the only ones allowed to return to the school because they are to write their final exams this year. Others were asked to remain at home since March when South Africa closed schools as part of measures to curb the spread of coronavirus. Contact tracing and testing is currently being done by doctors in order to prevent further spread.
The South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (SADTU), the country’s largest for teachers, this week called for schools in Eastern Cape province to close again, citing lack of protective equipment and unreliable water supplies.
Angie Motshekga, the Education Minister said cases in schools simply showed that “many people already had the virus but didn’t know it”.
Motshekga said in a statement, “we will continue to work hard… to make sure that we protect our learners, teachers and employees.”
