Gweru transfers TB patients to Mvuma

The City of Gweru has set aside the Isolation Infectious Disease Hospital in Ascot for typhoid patients only as efforts to contain the outbreak intensify.

All TB patients who had been admitted at the hospital have been moved to Driefontein Mission Hospital in Mvuma.

This follows a recommendation from the Ministry of Health and Child Care to the City of Gweru to transfer all TB patients to Driefontein Mission in Mvuma as a way of reducing pressure on the Isolation Infectious Disease Hospital which has been spared for typhoid cases only.

Midlands Provincial Epidemiology and Disease Control Officer, Dr Mary Muchekeza said they have set aside isolation hospital as part of their responsive strategies to contain typhoid in the city and that TB and typhoid patients cannot be sheltered in one place because the diseases are infectious.

Dr Muchekeza said they have started recording a decline in the number of suspected typhoid cases since initiating their response strategy.

10 people have died of typhoid in Gweru while more than one thousand cases have been reported.