Johannesburg, Mar 17 (PTI) South African Health Minister Joe Phaahla has tabled for public comment amended laws that enable issuing of warrants by a court to compel any COVID-19 positive people refusing to take treatment or isolate to do so.

In terms of the amended regulations, a person who is a clinical or laboratory confirmed case, carrier or contact of a notifiable medical condition (which includes COVID-19) who refuses to voluntarily consent to a medical examination by a qualified health care provider or refuses mandatory prophylaxis, treatment, isolation or quarantine in order to prevent transmission, may be compelled to do so through a warrant issued by a competent court.

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A wide range of other measures introduced earlier to curb the spread of COVID-19 are reaffirmed in the regulations.

These include wearing masks in public places; businesses ensuring suitable facilities for employees and customers for sanitisation and social distancing; and control of numbers at indoor and outdoor venues.

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The Regulations Relating to the Surveillance and The Control of Notifiable Medical Conditions has been put into the public domain for comment until 15 April, after which the Department of Health will implement them without the need to table it in the South African parliament.

This is because the new amendments are considered to be subordinate legislation to what has already been delegated to the health minister.

The amendments are a first step towards ending the national state of disaster, which has been in place for two years now since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

President Cyril Ramaphosa said earlier that the State of Disaster could only be ended once the new regulations, which include safety protocols, were in place.

The extension on Wednesday of the State of Disaster for a further month has been met with widespread resistance, including from Alan Winde, the Premier of the Western Cape Province, the only one of the nine in the country that is governed by the opposition Democratic Alliance.

"Despite having months and months to prepare alternative public health measures that would normalise our response while enabling us to focus on creating jobs, it seems that the national government has still not got its act together and finished this job,” Winde said.

The coastal Western Cape province is one of the most popular destinations in South Africa for both domestic and foreign tourists, with almost three million visitors annually.

Leading medical experts and business leaders, especially those in the tourism industry, have also decried the decision to extend the State of Disaster because of the impact it will have on the economic recovery that has just started with the easing of lockdown regulations.

South Africa is currently at the lowest level of its five-phase lockdown strategy, with just two COVID-related deaths reported overnight.

Almost 300,000 deaths have been reported by the National Institute for Communicable Diseases after the four waves in the country, with a fifth wave expected as the winter season starts next month.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)