Namibian health ministry to conduct targeted testing of coronavirus at hotspots

The Ministry of Health and Social Services will commence with targeted testing, going to areas where they are reasonably confident of finding targets, an official said this week.

The Minister of Health, Kalumbi Shangula at a COVID-19 update event in Windhoek said the ministry will focus on what they deem hot-spots in the country.

"Our strategy going forward is to increase our monitoring and surveillance. As I have indicated earlier, we have revised our testing strategy to assess the degree of community transmission," he said.

Shangula said as Namibia increases its testing capacity, the ministry will continue to revise its criteria for testing.

"We are going to test as many people as our capacity can allow. In doing so, we are guided by the epidemiological nature of the infection. We are going to do a targeted testing, going where we are reasonably confident of finding the target," he added.

Furthermore, the Shangula said going forward the health ministry is to comply with the measures put in place.

The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Namibia remains 16, ten days after the last case was recorded