Limpopo mine closes due to 19 infections

Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy Gwede Mantashe, the Limpopo government led by Premier Stanley Mathabatha and Impala Platinum Group CEO Nico Muller met in Bela-Bela on Sunday after 19 mineworkers at Marula Mine tested positive for Covid-19.

The mine, in the Sekhukhune region, has since closed as the infections are seen as a cluster outbreak.

A total of 2 700 workers, all from Limpopo, reported for duty between 15 and 17 April and were tested for Covid-19. All were allowed to go underground.

The infected workers were among 30 employees who reported for duty on 4 May and were subsequently tested.

Health MEC Phophi Ramathuba said these workers, who were all asymptomatic, were now being housed at a facility under the care of government health officials.

She insisted that forced quarantine was the only way to curb the spread of Covid-19.

“The mines say they will quarantine those who test positive after showing symptoms. But how many will test positive?

“We are saying that everyone must be quarantined because you don’t know who is infected or not,” said Ramathuba.

During yesterday’s meeting, Mantashe said his department had issued rules and prescripts to be followed and that the mines had done well in this regard, except on testing.

Implats identified 19 positive Covid-19 cases during the week, all of them asymptomatic.

Of these cases, 14 were as a result of proactive testing of employees returning to work. None of these employees had started work.

Of the remaining five, one case was identified as a primary contact and the remaining four were identified through contact tracing. Two of the active cases had recently returned from the Eastern Cape.

Significantly, 17 of the confirmed cases were residents of Limpopo, suggesting the prevalence of Covid-19 among local communities was far higher than the company’s initial estimates had indicated, Implats said.

The suspension of operations at the mine was a voluntary precautionary step and sanitisation and screening and testing had to be done on a continuous basis.

Earlier the Limpopo government and mining companies seemingly could not agree on the way forward after the workers tested positive for the virus.

Health MEC Phophi Ramathuba had expressed concern that government and the mining companies were “failing to find each other” on the issue.

By Sunday, Limpopo had 77 positive cases of Covid-19.

– Caxton News Service