Andrew Kathindi
The situation Namibia is in, and in particular, Walvis Bay, could have been avoided had preparations been done earlier, this according to former Health Minister, Dr Bernard Haufiku.
The former minister, who at the beginning of the pandemic in Namibia was appointed as the National Coordinator for COVID-19, a decision that was later rescinded, told Windhoek Observer that he presented several scenarios to curb the spread of COVID-19 in April however all fell on deaf ears.
This comes as the country has recorded 36 new cases on Wednesday, taking the tally to 1,402 positive cases and seven deaths.
Haufiku said that he had secured the support of Vice President, Nangolo Mbumba on 24 April on his plan to appeal to the private sector for help in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This included securing a plane belonging to Debmarine to fly response officials to key places such as Orangemund, Luderitz, Ondangwa, Walvis Bay, Rundu and Katima. We had also approached Air Namibia, however the airliner was charging a fee while Debmarine had offered their plane free,” Haufiku said, according to his conversation with the company’s CEO, Otto Shikongo.
“I also advised that we approached Unam since they have a machine that can test on this virus and the response was that we don’t need to bring in so many machines. I think they were banking on the fact that we were sitting on 16 cases for about 79 days.”
He said he got the impression that ministry officials were laxed, feeling they had control over the virus.
“Could the situation be the same, had we gone in April to prepare the regions as per my suggestion, possibly, but it’s also possible that it could not have been the same. Because Walvis Bay was definitely not ready, let’s face it, and that’s why we are in this situation.”
He said it should be acknowledged that there were delays in responding to cases in the Erongo to prevent making the same mistakes.
“We have failed to coordinate our effort and bring everyone together and as a result we lost community trust and collaboration and we lost the trust of the private sector, which is a critical component of the response.”
This, as recent media reports have claimed that residents in quarantine in Erongo have become increasingly frustrated with the situation and threatened to leave as they feel they are being kept longer than necessary.
Haufiku further confirmed that he had offered to go to Walvis Bay to provide support and leadership but this offer too went unattended.
“Given my recent medical practice experience, I could do some set-up like with the ventilators, things we normally use in theatre. But the most important thing was just to provide leadership. That’s not to say there isn’t leadership there, the Governor, Neville Andre and leaders within the Ministry of Health are there, but I thought coordination was an issue there.”
This comes as Health Minister Kalumbi Shangula on Wednesday reported that there are twelve patients in a Walvis Bay hospital who are extremely ill and in great need of oxygen support. Walvis Bay constituency councilor Knowledge Iipinge recently criticized Shangula for not making time to come to Walvis Bay to assess the situation for himself.
President Hage Geingob today (Wednesday) sent a delegation of Deputy Ministers to Walvis Bay.
Haufiku however said the situation in Erongo is too late for containment and the best for the region is management and to give attention to cases beginning to rise in other areas of the country. On Wednesday, Shangula reported three new cases in Windhoek, four in Swakopmund and one in Luderitz.
“The other thing we need to do is ramp up our testing capacity. We need to make sure we have testing facilities in Katima, Windhoek, Oshakati and other key parts of the country.”
Huafiku added, “But then the technical people advised that it’s not necessary to roll those out as long as we can get the samples to Windhoek on time. Uganda has done it. This was the advice of the Control for Disease Center (CDC) representatives, and it was accepted.”
Recently the Namibia Instate of Pathology (NIP) Acting Chief Operations Officer, Boniface Makumbi, admitted the company was experiencing a backlog of over 2000 tests.
“My advice now is to quickly strengthen those regions that are not at the level of Walvis Bay, which I think our response team is doing, I just don’t know to what extent. We need to prepare areas such as Oshakati, Ohangwena, Windhoek and other crowded places.”
Quizzed on what could be done for Erongo, Haufiku said, “My belief is to shift the attention from trying to prevent the virus infecting just anybody and try and protect the vulnerable; those diabetic, overweight, hypertensive, or have asthma or HIV. Evidence points to so many people infected but not so many symptomatically ill.”
