By Judith Sibanda
Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) in collaboration with the Ministry of Health says they are making preparations to educate tourism operators on the deadly Coronavirus which has claimed at least 170 lives in China.
ZTA spokesperson Godfrey Koti said even though according to reports that an additional 6 000 cases have been reported worldwide, Zimbabwe was still safe and there was no need to panic.
According to National Authorities Graphic, countries that have been affected are China, Australia, Hong Kong, Macao, Cambodia, Canada and United States.
“We stand guided by the ministry of health and they have told us that they are very vigorous screening in processes that are happening at all the entry points of the country, and then also we are very reliably informed that they could be going to the hotels talking to staff just to educate them,” he said.
“They have sent some awareness to them trying to assist in terms of the visitors that are coming into the country just to make sure that everything is very well taken care of, but they have assured us that there is no need for us to panic at this point.”
Koti said the two ministries were working on ensuring that none of its citizens or visitors was going to be infected.
“We just need to maintain all measures of making sure that there is no one who is infected in the country. We are working extremely close at this particular time to make sure that everything is inline and working well as far as containment of this virus is concerned.”
Coronavirus symptoms include runny nose, coughing, sore throat and sometimes fever. It is spread from an infected person’s respiratory secretions, such as coughing.
