There were also low levels of coronavirus screening as well as a lack of Covid-19-related health promotion and education at Gauteng's shelters.
Entrance to the Strandfontein site where about 1,500 street people are currently staying. Picture: Ashraf Hendricks / GroundUp
The organisation has urged the City of Cape Town to invest more resources in their shelters in order to ensure that it “actually meets Covid-19 prevention criteria as regulated”. Dr Gilles van Cutsem, a senior TB/HIV adviser with MSF, who assessed the camp on Saturday as part of the team investigating health conditions at the shelter, said if anyone were to develop the coronavirus or TB at the site, the chances for medical staff detecting it early are small.
“We can confidently today say that we fully comply with the social distancing requirements. We have now opened all the marquees and have distributed people across all of them,” he said. “In addition to violating individual rights, it might further exacerbate the public health risk posed by Covid-19, because vulnerable people don’t all trust authorities, and their legitimate fears of detention might force some underground causing them to altogether avoid seeking care, even when needed.”
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