Ziyambi Ziyambi came face to face with death

Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Ziyambi Ziyambi says he is fortunate to be alive after battling a Covid-19 related illness for several weeks and is using his near-death experience to urge adherence to regulations aimed at controlling the spread of the pandemic.

Minister Ziyambi tested positive for Covid-19 at the end of December 2020, before being admitted to hospital where a number of doctors, including those from the Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Service (ZPCS), attended to him after his condition deteriorated.

During the period that he was ill, several Government ministers and high ranking Zanu-PF officials succumbed to the novel virus. Ziyambi, who is Zanu-PF provincial chair for Mashonaland West, recounted his experience to fellow party cadres during a Provincial Coordinating Committee (PCC) meeting in Chinhoyi last Saturday.

Ziyambi implored party officials to get vaccinated once the second and third vaccination phases were introduced, saying Covid-19 was real.

"I am a survivor of Covid-19 and the disease is painful and deadly. I lost a lot of colleagues and many cadres here in Mashonaland West province.

"We lost Minister Ellen Gwaradzimba, Foreign Affairs Minister, Sibusiso Moyo, former ZPCS Commissioner General, Paradzai Zimondi and my dear friend, (Joel Biggie) Matiza," the visibly emotional, Ziyambi said.

The late Matiza was the Minister of Transport and Infrastructural Development.

"I become very emotional when I talk about these losses because the majority of the incidents happened when I was indisposed and in hospital."

The minister recounted how ZPCS doctors who were treating him instructed the nursing staff to take away the television remote control unit and cellphones to cut outside communication and information. "The doctors were afraid I could get affected by the news of the deaths."

He said Covid-19 was not only affecting urban communities, but ravaging rural areas as well.

"When I survived the pandemic, I was shocked to hear of a lot of people who had succumbed to the virus in Zvimba rural which shows how the disease has become even more deadly."

Minister Ziyambi who came face to face with death, survived through specialist treatment while on oxygen.

Social media platforms also buzzed with messages pronouncing the death of the minister.

Mashonaland West Minister of Provincial Affairs and Devolution Mary Mliswa-Chikoka urged party cadres to adhere to World Health Organisation (WHO) regulations on social distancing, face masking and sanitising to avoid getting the virus as asymptomatic patients were the super spreaders.

She also called on party members to receive their Covid-19 jabs.

"Covid-19 is now part of our life and we should accept the vaccine and get the jabs as the vaccines are safe," she said.