Patients at a public clinic in Belhar got a skrik on Thursday when the facility was evacuated due to a suspected case of the novel Coronavirus.
People rushed out of the St Vincent Clinic as a pregnant woman with flu-like symptoms was seen to.
The woman was instructed to go to Tygerberg Hospital - where a dedicated unit has been set up - for an assessment, but according to Health Department Spokesperson Mark van der Heever, she did not have the deadly virus.
“This person was assessed and found not to meet the criteria of Covid-19 and as such did not require testing,” he said.
A male patient, who was at the clinic, said they panicked as they were being evacuated.
FRENZY: Panicked patients at St Vincent Clinic in Belhar were evacuated after a woman was sent for testing at Tygerberg
“The way all this was handled was bad. The person was asked to go to Tygerberg Hospital on her own, if she was infected she would have infected other people along the way,” he says.
Meanwhile Education MEC Debbie Schäfer confirmed that United Herzlia, a private school group, has closed the doors of eight schools in Cape Town due to the Coronavirus.
This comes as the number of people in South Africa testing positive for Covid-19 yesterday rose to 16, and the World Health Organisation declared the virus a global pandemic.
CLOSED: Herzlia
KwaZulu-Natal is still the most affected province with a total of eight cases, followed by Gauteng with six cases.
The new cases include a 27-year-old woman in Mpumalanga who had returned from the United States on March 7, a 38-year-old man from Turkey who was visiting his family in Durban and a 43-year-old Joburg man who travelled to New York via Dubai and returned to South Africa on March 8.
In other news, 122 South Africans stranded in Wuhan, China, are expected to arrive home today.
Minister in the Presidency Jackson Mthembu, declined to say whether they would be placed under mandatory quarantine.
“They are as healthy as you and me. They have not contracted the disease,” he said.
Belhar clinic shut down over suspected case.
Meanwhile, the annual hajj for Muslims is also in the balance.
The South African Hajj and Umrah Council (Sahuc) on Thursday announced the administration of the pilgrimage would be put on hold, following an instruction from the Ministry of Hajj in Saudi Arabia “where they indicate that it is too early to determine if Hajj 1441H will continue or not”.
The first SA pilgrims were scheduled to leave on 20 June.
This comes after the umrah was suspended last month.
The WHO said there were almost 125 000 cases of Covid-19 reported from 118 countries, with nearly 4300 deaths.