Success Stories(COVID-19)

Until very recently, healthcare workers and teams working on the front line against COVID-19 in Zambia had no access to real-time data about the pandemic in their country. All data was stored in spreadsheets and on paper, leading to difficulties in understanding the real impact of the pandemic. This lack of data limited the speed…

The healthcare system in the Eastern Cape has been under strain for some time but the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic across the region pushed the already fragile system to breaking point. One of the major issues in the region was the huge shortage of oxygen for patients suffering from the disease. As one Right…

By April 2020 there was considerable concern that COVID-19 would have a devastating impact across the African continent, due to its high HIV prevalence and latent TB rates. Modelling suggested that hospitals would be overwhelmed with patients requiring active respiratory support. These models predicted a massive shortage of ventilators and a lack of healthcare workers…

Mpumalanga is a province of South Africa most well-known for its tourist attraction, the Kruger National Park. The Mpumalanga Department of Health’s (DOH) Antonnette Hlatshwayo heads the province’s COVID-19 contact tracing team. “Our main challenge was limited resources for contact tracing and monitoring. Without being able to locate and monitor people who had been in…

Nwabisa Pulumo works for the Ehlanzeni district municipality in Mpumalanga, South Africa, as the GIS manager. “At the outbreak of the pandemic, a command centre was set up to ensure coordination amongst stakeholders and departments at district and provincial levels. I needed to provide information on where COVID-19 cases were and how the virus would…

As COVID-19 cases in South Africa’s Mpumalanga province started to climb rapidly, the plight of vulnerable communities fell into the spotlight. Mittah Raditlhalo, a GIS specialist in Right to Care’s stra-tegic information unit, explains that, “In poor areas, population densi-ties are high, people live close together and use public transport. Social distancing is in some…