About eight Bulawayo Football Club players are quarantined at Thorngrove Infectious Hospital after testing positive for Covid-19.
The team was camped at a local lodge in Bulawayo’s low-density suburb where they checked in on Friday and checked out on Saturday.
City Health Services Director Dr Edwin Sibanda confirmed the development.
“We received information yesterday that some members of Bulawayo FC needed to be quarantined after testing positive to Covid-19. Due to the fact that Elangeni Isolation Center is closed, we saw fit to quarantine them at Thorngrove Infectious Hospital while making arrangements to move them elsewhere. Unfortunately, I am off duty so I am not privy to the finer details,” Dr Sibanda.
The manager of the lodge, who declined to be named confirmed that the premier soccer league team had booked in at their lodge but declined that they were exposed to Covid-19 during their stay there.
“Our protocol is that when teams come to book at our lodge they have to produce their Covid-19 certificates of which they did and they were all negative. When they checked out they got tested again, all was in order. We are not sure how these developments came to be,” the manager said.
The team’s public relations officer Thandiwe Moyo denied knowledge of the incident.
“There is nothing like that at the team,” she told CITE in a telephone interview.
Premier Soccer League (PSL) Communications and Media Liason Officer Kudzai Bare issued a statement, Thursday noting that they had received reports of Covd-19 positive cases among PSL clubs.
“PSL has received reports of a number of positive Covid-19 cases among PSL clubs. Please be advised that we are working with Club doctors and the PSL Sports Medicine Committee and other relevant stakeholders to assist the affected and contain the spread of the virus. We advise our clubs and stakeholders to strictly follow the Covid-19 protocols and match operating procedures,” Bare said.
