Vigilance Against The Virus

With the coronavirus spreading faster globally than the news around it, how is corporate Africa bracing itself for the threat?

- Tiana Cline

For the first time in 14 years, the world’s biggest smartphone conference, Mobile World Congress (MWC), was cancelled last month. This multi-million-dollar Barcelona-based event shut its doors due to fear of the novel coronavirus (also called 2019nCoV) which has led to shops across China shutting their doors and cruise ships docked and quarantined.

“The cancellation of MWC is not just a big blow to major players who had planned their most significant product launches of the year but also for startups and small to medium enterprises who would have invested a big chunk of the marketing and sales budget into establishing a presence at MWC,” explains Arthur Goldstuck, a technology analyst and World Wide Worx founder and CEO in South Africa.

While most of the Hubei-born coronavirus-related deaths have occurred in China, there have been multiple cases of people contracting the virus in other parts of the world. To date*, there are no confirmed cases of the virus in South Africa but according to Dr Cheryl Cohen from the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), it is likely that we will see a case.

Dr Anchen Laubscher, Netcare’s group medical director, says that the Netcare Group is ready to respond to and manage any cases, should the need arise: “Netcare has developed a set of comprehensive clinical risk assessment pathways in consultation with the NICD, that are being used to assess all admissions for possible exposure to the virus,” she says. “These are used routinely and diligently as a precautionary measure by our emergency medical personnel, doctors and hospital staff to assess any patient who may have been exposed to risk factors associated with coronavirus.”