Anatomy of a Covid-19 outbreak: how the coronavirus tore through a South African hospital

Name: To starve or get sick: Africa’s lockdown dilemma amid the coronavirus pandemic
Uploaded: 2020-05-26T14:30:17.000Z
Duration: 3 min 58 s
Description: To starve or get sick: Africa’s lockdown dilemma amid the coronavirus pandemic

More than a dozen patients and staff at a small Durban medical centre died within weeks as the coronavirus was transmitted from ward to ward

A report into outbreak offers lessons for the health system as a whole, the study’s authors say

Reading Time:4 minutes

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The outbreak of Covid-19 at Netcare St Augustine’s Hospital in Durban, South Africa, offers lessons for all. Photo: Google Maps

Jevans Nyabiage

Published: 10:30pm, 26 May 2020Updated: 11:20pm, 27 May 2020

On March 9, a patient, who had recently been to Europe, visited a private hospital in Durban, South Africa, seeking treatment after showing symptoms of Covid-19, the disease caused by the pandemic coronavirus. Within weeks, 39 patients and 80 hospital staff had been infected and 15 were dead.

The coronavirus spread rapidly, transmitted from ward to ward between patients, doctors and nurses in the early days of the country’s encounter with the disease.

Now scientists at the University of KwaZulu-Natal have retraced the coronavirus’ deadly path through the hospital in a report that its authors say offers lessons not just for the medical facility but also for the public and private health system as a whole.

Richard Lessells, an infectious diseases specialist at the university and one of the study’s authors, said the cluster was believed to have started in the emergency unit at St Augustine’s Hospital.

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To starve or get sick: Africa’s lockdown dilemma amid the coronavirus pandemic

On March 9, two patients came into close contact at the unit – one had suspected coronavirus and recently returned from Europe, and the other was being admitted after having a stroke.