Isolation and quarantine resources within the higher learning institutional residences have been established, in a bid to prevent further outbreaks in common areas, including dining halls, kitchen and study halls.
Higher Education and Training Minister Blade Nzimande said that during all the COVID-19 waves, including the current third wave, the department experienced several cluster outbreaks across many institutional residences, which has warranted HIGHER HEALTH to develop a specific protocol for residences to deal with COVID-19 positive cases.
Going forward, Nzimande said the department will accelerate daily COVID-19 screenings at residences in order to identify possible outbreaks early.
Addressing the media on the department’s plans for the Post School Education and Training (PSET) institutions on Wednesday, as the country moves to Adjusted Alert Level 4 lockdown, Nzimande announced that HIGHER HEALTH has trained and developed over 49 000 campus-based frontline institutional staff and student volunteers.
They include residence officers (on-campus, off-campus and private accommodation), management, student support services, campus security and cleaning staff.
The Minister said HIGHER HEALTH will now embark on training resident managers, wardens, other resident staff, including private accommodation on the Resident Safety Protocol, in partnership with all institutional managements.
He urged all institutions to work with HIGHER HEALTH, as “residences pose a serious risk for COVID-19 outbreaks and ensuring we save lives among our students”.
“It is now evident that the new Delta variant is highly transmissible and increasingly infecting larger numbers of younger persons in the population – unlike the previous (Alpha) variant. It is therefore crucial for young people to take these extra measures very seriously if we are to prevent community transmission,” Nzimande warned.
HealthCheck screening tool
The Minister reminded students to use the HIGHER HEALTH toll-free digital screening tool, called HealthCheck, which is available on Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), WhatsApp and in a webform.
This provides comprehensive symptom screening on a daily basis.
“It also issues a daily passport to enable all our students and staff to screen their COVID-19 status, thus allowing easy access in our campuses. I urge all our students, staff and service providers to use HealthCheck before leaving your home or residence in order to look after yourself as well as protecting others.
“Keeping in mind the new variants that are highly transmissible even when someone is asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic and especially in the third wave, daily COVID-19 screening is critical towards saving human lives.
“Thus far, over 12.9 million passports have been issued through this tool since its launch in early June 2020,” Nzimande said.
District Campus Health
In order to strengthen student health and wellness services at campuses in underprivileged communities, HIGHER HEALTH has established District Campus Health and Wellness Mobile Clinic Health Care Programme to play a key role in managing cluster outbreaks across campuses.
The department works closely with the Health Department and National Health Laboratory Services, to enable early detection, isolation and further mitigating the spread of infection, across residences and campuses.
The Minister has also instructed HIGHER HEALTH to come up with a PSET vaccination strategy that is aligned with and supporting the Department of Health’s phased national vaccine roll out strategy.
“The strategy will help to ensure access to vaccination for all our staff, including academia, management but importantly our frontline staff at our residences, cleaning, security and other support staff. This matter has been tabled at the IMC (Inter Ministerial Committee) and I am confident that very soon we will start the roll out of vaccination to all our staff in the post school system.”
Source: South African Government News Agency