As Gauteng continues to record a high number of cases of coronavirus (COVID-19), the Department of Health is searching for people who have tested positive for the virus but are now nowhere to be found.
Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize announced on Thursday that the number of cases had risen to 927. Gauteng accounted for 409 of those people.
Gauteng Health MEC Dr Bandile Masuku called on people who had tested for COVID-19 at private laboratories in the province to check their results.
The MEC said his department was struggling to get a hold of people who had been tested to give them their results.
He said his concern was that those who tested positive could be infecting others without knowing their status.
“One of the bigger problems that we have is the issue of those who have been in contact with them… I think in the forms that they’ve submitted to the laboratories, they don’t put their physical addresses. It becomes difficult to trace them and the contacts that they might have had,” Masuku said.
Masuku called on people who had done tests at private laboratories to get in touch with the labs as soon as possible.