Curbing COVID-19 in a South African gold mine

The sun is just rising in Lejweleputswa District, the hub of Free State Province’s gold mining industry. While residents of the surrounding towns are only waking up, mine workers at Harmony Mine’s Phakisa site are already preparing to go underground. Operations at the mine are back to normal since strict public health and safety measures put in place by the government to curb the COVID-19 pandemic were relaxed.

Bukiwe Maqutyana is one of the mine workers getting ready for her shift as a stope team member. She and her team install artificial support packs into the rock kilometres under the surface to prevent rockfalls.

She is grateful to be alive, productive and provide for her two boys back home in the neighbouring Eastern Cape Province.

Maqutyana fell ill with COVID-19 more than two years ago. After self-screening before starting her shift and subsequently testing positive for COVID-19, the mine sent her home to self-isolate 14 days.

She was not well and anxious. She had heard about the many deaths from COVID-19 happening around her. “I had this shortness of breath – I thought I was really dying,” she says.

The mine’s nurse was in daily contact with Maqutyana throughout her isolation period. “They were constantly calling me, asking me how I was. The sister would visit me at home just to monitor me,” she says.

The nurse also asked Maqutyana for a list of people with whom she had been in contact. The mine traced them, and they too underwent self-isolation.

Maqutyana survived and was able to return to work in full health. “I recovered really well, with the help of my employer,” she says.

Health and safety are a priority for the mine. Right at Phakisa’s entrance is an imposing board with 21 white flags fluttering in the morning breeze, proudly representing the number of days since the last workplace injury occurred.

So, when COVID-19 hit, the mine used the many disaster management processes already in place to prepare its outbreak management strategy.

During the strict lockdown in April 2021, when the mine had to shut down completely for three weeks, management used the time to pre-plan. They set up strict screening processes and identified and prepared quarantine sites before bringing back half of the workforce.

Electronic self-screening tools were installed at the entrance gates to the shaft, along with fixed point scanners to verify a mine worker’s self-screening. If a worker failed at either of these screening points, they would be sent straight to a health post for screening and would be referred for testing if need be. While waiting for the result, the worker’s crew would already be alerted. If the screened worker tested positive for COVID-19, the rest of the team would be brought above ground and immediately quarantined.

This meticulous process was implemented for more than a year and only recently ceased after South Africa relaxed most of its public health and safety measures.

At first, 25 000 workers returned to the mine. But since July 2020, 45 000 mine workers have been through this process daily, before descending underground.

Dr Tumi Legobye, Health Executive at Harmony Gold Mines, says that the aim of these measures is to protect the miner’s health. “As an employer I am more interested in making sure that a worker like Bukiwe is well. And that is a drive for Harmony. I have to make sure that Bukiwe can come back to work. I cannot lose Bukiwe with all her skills and knowledge. So, we had to make sure that employees come back healthy,” she says.
The outbreak management strategy paid off. Of the 22 470 workers tested, 6110 tested positive, of which 79 lost their lives.

The relationship between the mine and Lejweleputswa’s district Department of Health has been critical for a successful outbreak management response.

“We were able to collaborate on our contract tracing, especially when there was community transmission. We helped follow up on family members and other communities the mine workers had been in contact with,” says Oratile Mokgethi, WHO’s District Epidemiologist for Lejweleputswa, who supports the department with data analysis and reporting.

Mokgethi’s support has been invaluable, according to Dr John Akinbohun, the department’s COVID-19 surveillance lead. “The WHO has been very supportive of our district. After WHO provided the district epidemiologist, we gained confidence and our efforts were better coordinated and documented,” he says.

Once the COVID-19 vaccine became available, Harmony embraced it with open arms.

Vaccine acceptance among mine workers has been high, according to Legobye, the Health Executive at Harmony Gold Mines. Workers are educated and
counselled before they receive the jab, allaying any concerns they may have about its safety or efficacy. Currently, 84% of Harmony’s workers have completed their primary vaccination series and 34% have received a booster dose.

The new processes that have been put in place at the mine, in addition to existing disaster management mechanisms, means that Harmony’s has elevated its rapid response to future outbreaks.