Africa Press-Nigeria:
CONFUSION has rocked Zimbabwe’s real number of confirmed Covid-19 cases with authorities Friday ignominiously rolling back official statistics from the 40 announced during the week to just 34.
In its latest update of the Covid-19 situation in the country, the Health Ministry said the embarrassing mistake was caused by the clustering of six results which were reported as positive for the dreaded pandemic.
The mistake was however corrected after taking the six for a quality assurance process.
Said the Ministry: “The Ministry would like to report the results of the Quality Assurance process instituted following an unusual clustering of six cases that were reported as positive from Harare on the 29th of April 2020 have confirmed all of them were negative for Covid-19.”
According to the ministry, all the latest PCR tests done in Harare were negative for Covid-19.
“Therefore, to date, Zimbabwe still has 34 confirmed Covid-19 cases and not forty as previously reported,” said the ministry.
Doubts over the credibility of the statistics being availed by government are beginning to take centre stage as many questions arise as to what led to authorities making a rushed declaration before exhausting all processes.
But the Health Ministry reassured the nation that all results continued to be guided by the values and principles of professionalism, transparency and accountability and that the systems in place will assure continued reporting of accurate and reliable results in line with the Quality Management System.
A total of 977 tests were done giving a total of 9 291 screening and diagnostic tests done to date.
