By Maureen Murotho, MANA
Blantyre District Health Cluster has warned its residents that some countries have been hit by second waves of COVID-19 and as such it will be good for people to continuously protect themselves until the pandemic comes to an end by continuing practicing safe measures.
Speaking during a Health Cluster meeting on Friday, acting District Medical Officer Fatsani Zaziwe said due to the decrease of COVID-19 cases in the country, people have started relaxing which could lead to cases increasing again.
New infections keep registering daily
“One of the challenges we are facing as a health institution is that people have stopped following COVID-19 measures which were put in place.
People have started gathering in large groups and have stopped protecting themselves such as wearing masks and washing hands frequently,” he said.
As of Saturday, Blantyre District has recorded 1,692 local transmission and 192 imported cases. Out of the registered cases, 1,235 are males while 652 are females of which 67 are still active.
Limbe has been an area with highest number of cases in the district reaching 157. the district has registered a cumulative figure of 1,887 cases.
Coronavirus alert
And as of Saturday evening, Blantyre registered one new case from the 10 that Malawi has recorded. There were five new recoveries, and no new deaths.
The other nine new cases, from the 406 tests that were conducted in the past 24 hours, are from Lilongwe Health District — as according to the daily update from chairperson of the presidential task force on COVID-19, Dr. John Phuka.
Cumulatively, Malawi now has recorded 5,852 cases including 181 deaths and of these cases, 1,167 are imported infections and 4,685 are locally transmitted.
Coronavirus alert
And cumulatively, 4,740 cases have now recovered bringing the total number of active cases to 931.
Adding credence that people should not relax yet, health activist Maziko Matemba — who is the country’s Community Health Ambassador, described citizen’s failure to observe COVID-19 preventative measures as unfortunate as government and World Health Organisation (WHO) have not cleared the country free from the pandemic.
He warned the public that COVID-19 remains threat to the country as there is no vaccine to cure it.
Coronavirues alert: Respect to health workers
“The biggest reality with Coronavirus is that it can easily spread far and wide to an extent that we will not be able to control it later and people will die,” he said.
Dr. Phuka also added voice to people’s laxity towards the pandemic, saying for the nation to go back to their normal lives it’s the duty of everyone to reduce further the new infections.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly disrupted every aspect of our lives — we need stop the spread of the disease completely.
Coronavirus alert
“As we still have community transmission of the disease in our midst, to reduce new infections there is need to identify and isolate those that have the disease and bring them to care, and the primary contacts of the confirmed cases should contact the health authorities for further assessment and advise.”
He reminded to promptly inform the health authorities by calling toll free line 54747 (Airtel) or 929 (TNM) whenever one is experiencing
COVID-19 symptoms such as fever, cough, flu, shortness of breath, loss of taste or smell and tiredness.—Additional reporting by Glory Msowoya, MANA & Duncan Mlanjira, Maravi Express
Coronavirus alert