South Africa has intensified its war against the coronavirus pandemic by recruiting 2,369 interns to join healthcare personnel in the country, the health ministry announced on Friday.
According to the ministry, the new recruits include 650 graduates from the Nelson Mandela-Fidel Castro Cuba Medical Programme, which trains local doctors in Cuba.
The interns will be deployed to hospitals across the country where there is a reported burnout of health workers due to the demands of the five-month-old pandemic, the ministry added.
The new recruits join over 200 Cuban healthcare workers deployed nationwide to fight the pandemic, the ministry said.
The Cuban team – made up of doctors and specialists – has been deployed across the country which is still reeling from the disease in spite of a noticeable slowdown in the rate of infections in the past two weeks.
So far South Africa has seen 599,940 infections which have led to 12,618 deaths nationwide since the disease broke out in March this year, according to Health Minister Zweli Mkhize.
NM/jn/APA