Bulawayo based customs officer has been sent home on month-long isolation after testing positive for Covid-19, according to The Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra).
Zimra said the staff member concerned, a 27-year-old man, and two others were previously ordered to self-isolate at home from March 27 to April 26 after they “interacted with an external individual who later tested positive for Covid-19,” the respiratory illness caused by the coronavirus.
The encounter with the infected individual, a 70-year-old man who travelled from the United Kingdom and did not know he had the disease at the time, happened on March 18.
The trio returned to work on April 27 and on the same day swabs were taken for follow-up testing, the revenue collector’s Commissioner General Faith Mazani said in a memo to all staff.
“This is to advise that one of our fellow staff members based in Bulawayo has tested positive for coronavirus, according to test results released by the Ministry of Health and Child Care today, April 29, 2020,” Mazani disclosed to staff.
Mazani said the Zimra offices in Bulawayo had been closed until May 4 to allow for “full disinfection” and tests had been ordered on 15 Zimra officers who interacted with the infected staffer since his return to work. Results on those tests are pending.
On Wednesday night, the ministry of health said the country had 40 coronavirus cases including four deaths and five recoveries.
