Covid will kill thousands more, says Prof Ngwenya

A BULAWAYO-based health expert and medical Doctor Solwayo Ngwenya has warned that  the only panacea to COVID -19 pandemic is behavior change.

He added that vaccinations alone are not a solution to the rampaging pandemic.

Last week President Emmerson Mnangagwa extended  level 4 lockdown by two more weeks as the country recorded an 80% prevalence of the vicious Delta Covid 19 variant.

Following the upsurge of the pandemic ,the government recently rolled out a free and voluntary mass vaccination exercise with the aim to reach 10 million citizens to achieve herd immunity.

 However in an interview with NewZimbabwe.Com  Sunday, Ngwenya argued that no amount of vaccinations will eradicate Ccovid 19 as long as people are not following World Health Organization (WHO) COVID 19 preventions protocols.

 "Corona virus follows people's behavior. Right now people are extremely complacent , relaxed and they are still mixing and mingling .So the virus is following the people's behavior and we are having this terrible variant Delta which was confirmed by the government recently," said Ngwenya.

The medical professor said the current Delta variant is highly contagious and resistance to some vaccines.

"Early January this year, I warned people but unfortunately the people's behavior did not change so we are now faced with variants which are resistance to vaccines. It is difficult to say vaccination are going to solve anything,"

"Vaccinations are part of the prevention strategy but over ally the behavior of the population is critical in the way how the virus moves around, is given time to change its structures and come back in stronger variance. So It is entirely up to the population how it behaves in controlling the pandemic," said Ngwenya, who is also Acting Mpilo Hospital Chief Executive officer.

Ngwenya predicted that the pandemic is going to intensify and kill a lot of people in the coming months despite the current on-going vaccination programme.

"Corona virus is going to get worse. I see it is going to be a long fight now with Covid 19 and probably this is going to be drawn out for the coming months and is going to infect a lot of people as it is doing and is going to cause a lot of deaths. So whether you are vaccinated or not it will find you and infect you," warned Ngwenya.

He described the current Covid 19 strain as more devastating than the first Wuhan variant.

"This is a terrible disease and is four times as high as the previous Wuhan variant It is 60 percent infectious and highly transmissible," added Ngwenya.