A Dis-Chem Pharmacy employee working at its Southcoast Mall branch tested positive for Covid-19 on Monday this week.

ALSO READ: South Coast Dis-Chem confirms staff member has tested positive for Covid-19

After professional decontamination and sanitisation of the store, it opened its doors yesterday, Tuesday, June 10.

Here is a statement released by Dis-Chem regarding the incident: 

Dis-Chem has always made the health and safety of its customers, staff and community its highest priority.  Our store, along with all Dis-Chem stores nationwide, has thoroughly followed all required measures to limit the risk of Covid-19 transmission during the lockdown period.

We can confirm that one of our staff members has tested positive for Covid-19, but we have ensured that the risk of infection has limited transmission to anyone else, thanks to the rigorous preventative health and safety protocols we have implemented. These include daily temperature checks, social distancing, the use of masks, deep cleaning of the entire store with special attention to high-touch areas, sanitiser and protective Perspex sheets at tills and Dispensary.   In addition, we have completed a full professional decontamination and sanitisation of the store.

Close contacts of the affected person were immediately identified, placed in self-isolation and they are being monitored.

Our stringent trading safety measures remain a top priority.  These include limiting the number of customers in the store so that we can ensure appropriate social distancing and sanitising of every trolley before it is used.

Dis-Chem has always been known as the pharmacists who care, and we have extended this culture into how we manage and respond to the COVID-19 crisis. We take our role as essential service providers seriously and will continue to do our utmost to keep our staff and customers safe.

We thank all our customers for continuing to support us throughout this lockdown period.  Our staff are unceasingly committed to ensuring we continually provide you with your pharmaceutical, nutrition, healthcare, beauty, toiletries and baby care products.  We look forward to welcoming you again.

We have worked closely with the Department of Health throughout the lockdown period.

The Department of Health conducted a visited when re-opening the store on June 9.  They reviewed our protocols and confirmed that we are taking appropriate action to contain the spread of the virus, and found all in order upon their visit.

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