By Duncan Mlanjira
says currently, there are 153 people on its radar, who had a history of travel to countries consider COVID-19 hot-spot.
A situation report prepared by Epidemiology, Public Health Institute of Malawi (PHIM) done on Wednesday, says Lilongwe discharged zero from this follow-up and have 98 on current follow up with 18 new arrivals on March 11.
Blantyre discharged zero and had 2 arrival on follow-up making the cumulative number on follow-up at 55 people. However, Blantyre is yet to update on discharges.
“The Malawi Government is closely monitoring the situation and will continuously review strategies as new information come to light,” says the PHIM report.
“Screening of all travellers has been intensified in the two international airports and plans are underway to intensify surveillance in ground crossings.”
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PHIM says the Ministry of Health and its partners continue their efforts to ensure the citizens are protected from the Coronavirus outbreak and that the country is able to detect and respond to any cases that may arise.
Some of the activities being conducted include continue screening of travellers in all points of entry; providing media updates of current global and local situation; radio jingles and press releases on COVID-19.
The Ministry of Health, which is also engaging the private sector, is also disseminating information through social media (MoH Facebook page:https://www.facebook.com/malawimoh).
It is also responding to rumours and misinformation to counteract infodemic by continuously engaging with the media engagement.
It is also working towards upgrading the local laboratory capacity to test COVI-19 and is holding weekly technical committee meetings to update strategies as new knowledge comes to light.
PHIM says as Wednesday, March 11, four new countries/areas/territories registered COVID-19 — Bolivia, Jamaica, Burkina Faso and Democratic Republic of the Congo.
World Health Organisation (WHO) has characterised COVID-19 as a pandemic and it reported confirmed 118, 326 cases globally with 4,627 as new.
“80,955 (20 new) cases and 3,162 (22 new) deaths were reported in China. CFR was at 3.9%; 37,371 (4,595 new) cases were reported from outside China with 258 new deaths, bring the total to 1,130 deaths in 114 countries — CFR 3.0%.
“Countries that reported high numbers of locally transmitted new confirmed cases in the past 24 hours are Italy, Islamic Republic of Iran, Republic of Korea, Germany, France, Spain and United States of America.
“Countries with local transmission in Africa were Egypt (59 cases), Algeria (20) and Cameroon (2).”
The says the list of countries on the 14 days self-quarantine list are: China, Italy, Islamic Republic of Iran, Republic of Korea, Germany, France, Spain and United States of America.
Jappie Mhango, health and population minister
Meanwhile, Health and Population Minister, Jappie Mhango, who is the chairperson for Special Cabinet Committee on Coronavirus, hailed the partnership that exists between government and the public in undertaking precautionary measures to prevent the transmission of disease in the country.
Speaking after touring Chileka International Airport and Mwanza border, the Minister commended travelers into the country for complying with screening services that have been instituted in all entry points.
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“Initially, screening service of Coronavirus was done at airports only but now, the initiative has been extended to all border posts where we intend to beef up necessary support such as structures to enable the officials execute their task well to prevent the virus from being transmitted to Malawi and respond to it should the virus hit the country.
“But all in all, we have noted that the coordination and compliance among various stakeholders including travellers in responding to precautionary measures on Coronavirus is very impressive.
“This is what we want in as far as preventing the virus which has now become a public issue in the country,” Mhango said.
He urged travellers to always use designated routes when entering the country where they could be thoroughly screened for Coronavirus.—additional reporting by By Memory Chatonda, MANA