By Mary Makhiringa & Maston Kaiya, MANA
Balaka District Health Office (DHO) on Thursday revealed that the district has registered three positive cases of COVID-19, while Ntcheu added up two coronavirus cases to the national figure on Wednesday.
Balaka’s health promotion officer, Mercy Nyirenda said the three are part of the many that recently returned from South Africa and bolted from Kamuzu Stadium where they were being kept waiting for proper transportation to their respective homes.
South African returnees arriving at Kamuzu
Stadium last week
“Of the three, two are from Dziwe and one from Mbera,” she said. “These are the people who escaped from Kamuzu Stadium while their samples were already at the lab at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital.
“A team of health officers will do clinical evaluation of those cases to establish if they are mild or severe cases and a tracing team is also conducting contact tracing to these cases,” she said.
Makeshift isolation facilities at the stadium
She advised people to be mindful of all their movements and take all precautionary measures to prevent being infected with Coronavirus.
She further outlined that lab personnel will collect samples of the traced contacts to enable Balaka DHO to classify them as either symptomatic or asymptomatic.
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Ntcheu District Council director of health and social services, Dr. Isaac Mbingwani said their two case are also among the people who recently returned from South Africa and were being quarantined at Kameza treatment center in Blantyre.
“They are among the returnees who tested positive to the disease. Both cases are stable and are currently on self-isolation in their respective homes,” said the doctor.
He said one is a 24-year-old male from Manjawira while the other is a 26-year-old female from Bilira in the district.
Coronavirus alert
“Cumulatively, the district now has 3 confirmed cases of Coronavirus with the first one registered mid-May. All the confirmed cases in the district are imported from South Africa,” he said.
Dr. Mbingwani has also called upon all people in the district to intensify their personal hygiene to limit local transmission.
Coronavirus alert
According to Ntcheu’s COVID-19 daily information update, 47 high risk travelers are so far on follow-up.
As of Wednesday, Malawi has 369 confirmed cases of Coronavirus with four deaths and 51 recoveries while 314 cases are active.
Meanwhile, Government has chosen Chiradzulu Teachers Training College (TTC) to be a waiting centre for results of Coronavirus tests for South Africa returnees before they are sent to their home villages.
Chiradzulu Teachers Training College
This was disclosed on Tuesday when Department of Disaster and Management Affairs (DoDMA) and Blantyre District Hospital Office (DHO) engaged Chiradzulu District Council to approve the proposal.
Blantyre District health and education officer, Penjani Chunda said the TTC has passed the check list for human qualifier and it was fit to accommodate the returnees for tests.
“We have assessed the site and it is fit to accommodate the returnees,” he said. “We assure people of security at the place because all security challenges that were faced at Kamuzu Stadium were resolved.
Mwanza Border Post
He added that testing the people at Mwanza boarder has proved to be a long process as it took five hours to finish the testing and taking the samples to labs in Blantyre.
Chunda further said they could have used Blantyre TTC, but the facility failed to pass the human qualifier as it has no running water and has other malfunctioning facilities.
He also said the Chiradzulu centre had been chosen because it was close to Blantyre and taking the samples to labs would not take long compared to Mwanza.
Coronavirues alert: Respect to health workers
Speaking earlier, DoDMA Deputy Director, Dyce Nkhoma said the people were coming back into the country because they do not have jobs and the government of South Africa was only assisting its citizens with food.
He added that the returnees were booking buses on their own with their savings and that people should not think of them as the carriers of Coronavirus because some tested negative.
Coronavirus alert
Chiradzulu District health and environmental committee has asked DoDMA and Blantyre DHO to allow them re-assess the place because in February this year the environmental department at Chiradzulu DHO did an evaluation and it found out that water was not running properly and toilets were blocked.
The department said the students were using a borehole which was used by staff to draw water and they recommended drilling of a new borehole and that solar panels should be installed at the college to help pump water into the tanks.
Coronavirus alert
Chiradzulu District Commissioner, Reighard Chavula said they were ready to to provide the facility as a testing centre because this was a national issue which needs collaboration but there was a need to also engage the community around the college.
“The community has to be aware of what is happening because people have different perceptions about this pandemic,” he said.
Coronavirus alert
“Our colleagues from Blantyre went to assess the place and the community has already started reacting negatively.
“Proper structures should be followed to talk to the community so that they understand it.”—Additional reporting by Linda Likomwa, MANA