By Duncan Mlanjira
Reports coming from South Africa’s Gauteng Province indicate that COVID-19 infection rate has climbed 6% over the week after the easing of restrictions across the country.
According to a report posted on allAfrica.com written by Andre van Wyk, the increase — which was “noted with concern” by the provincial health department’s Jacob Mamabolo — was attributed to, among other factors, non-adherence to non-pharmaceutical interventions by some members of the public.
The report says Johannesburg, Tshwane and the north of Ekurhuleni were areas that saw notable increases in the number of active cases.
A health official in SA sensitising communities
This might affect Malawi because the first cases that were registered in April were imported infections from Malawian returnees from South Africa that passed through Mwanza border and kept increasing as more returned home following lockdowns in their host country.
Since April, Malawi has cumulatively recorded 5,773 cases including 179 deaths and of these cases, 1,149 are imported infections.
From the imported cases translated into 4,624 being locally transmitted cases but from this figure 4,263 cases have since recovered — bringing the total number of active cases to 1,331 as of the past 24 hours.
Malawi’s Wednesday update
Malawi has registered one new COVID-19 case as of Wednesday — a locally transmitted infection from Blantyre and there were 18 new recoveries and no new deaths.
The report on allAfrica.com quotes Mamabolo urging the public to be cautious, saying since there is still no vaccine, the only way to contain the spread of the pandemic is through adhering preventive measures such as wearing of masks, keeping social distance and hand sanitisation.
The online also quotes KwaZulu-Natal’s Premier, Sihle Zikalala as also calling on citizens to adhere to the government’s regulations on the pandemic, saying UK registered a second wave of infections prompting a return of some lockdown measures due to the rise in cases.
Coronavirus alert
Zikalala warns South Africans: “If it can happen to those first-world countries, it can happen to us. Therefore, let us not leave anything to chance, and ensure that we follow all the COVID-19 precautions. We cannot afford to be complacent.”
This is the same that Malawi’s co-chairperson of presidential taskforce on COVID-19, Dr. John Phuka continues to reiterate that even though the pandemic has reached low levels, there is still the need to even increase all efforts to clear the disease completely.
He keeps warning that it is clear that the country still have pockets of the disease and people should not relent on their efforts in its fight.
Coronavirus alert
Most Malawians, as observed by Dr. Phuka, are relaxing in practicing preventive measures and he stresses the need for a collaborative effort to effectively suppress the pockets of the virus from spreading again and creating another wave of the severe disease.
“This is also more important as we continue to open our social and economic activities (schools, airports and sports),” he continues to say in his daily situation reports.
Mid this month, Minister of Health & Population Khumbize Kandodo-Chiponda, who is also co-chairperson, said it is everyone’s duty to practice the preventive and containment measures wholesomely and to treat everyone that they meet as a potential carrier of the virus as 90% of those having COVID-19 are asymptomatic.
Coronavirus alert
Kandodo-Chiponda had warned people against against complacency in observing the preventive measures, stressing that Coronavirus is unpredictable because some countries have experienced second wave of attack after figures dropped just as is happening in Malawi.
“Our goal as the Ministry and as Government is to ensure that we don’t have new infections and to achieve that we need to keep our guard at all times,” she said.
According to the Minister, Mangochi and Mzimba are high risk areas since its large numbers of the population travel to South Africa and are currently returning.
Coronavirues alert: Respect to health workers
She disclosed that close to 6,000 Malawian returnees from South Africa are stuck at Beit Bridge and the government is sending buses every week to collect them.
According to the numbers compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University using statistics from the World Health Organization and other international institutions as well national and regional public health departments, South Africa is the most hit as from the total cases of 670,766, the related deaths were at 16,398.
As of Monday, September 28, confirmed COVID-19 cases from 55 African countries were at 1,460,328 while recoveries were at 1,207,261 — giving the number of active cases at 253,067.
Total reported deaths in Africa were at 35,163 and other most-affected countries include Egypt (102,840 cases), Morocco (117,685), Ethiopia (73,332), Nigeria (58,324) and Algeria (51,067).
Coronavirus alert: Africa situation