Malawi beginning to see curve flattening in Covid-19 cases, says Minister Chiponda

Minister of Health Khumbidze Kandodo Chiponda  has said latest confirmed number of coronavirus cases in the country highlights a major signal towards possible successful fight against the global health pandemic.

Chiponda’s observation follows the confirmation of five new cases, 47 recoveries and one new death. These figures were announced on Monday, August, 24 2020.

The last time Malawi registered lowest number of confirmed cases was on June 6 (five cases from 134 tests, representing 3 7 percent).

Public Health Institute of Malawi (Phim) daily reports on coronavirus  indicate that the number of new cases and deaths per week are continuing to reduce.

Chiponda disclosed that the latest confirmed five cases were detected from 214 tests, representing 2.3 percent positive case among those tested.

“This is a signal in the right direction, but I will be quick to caution – let us not be too excited yet.

“We are only testing those with symptoms which means we may have undetected cases within our community, and we continue to lose lives,” said Chiponda.

The new recorded death is of a 32-year-old pregnant woman from Blantyre and was admitted at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital.

“All new cases are locally transmitted infections: four are from Blantyre and one from Lilongwe.

“Cumulatively, Malawi has recorded 5,419 cases including 169 deaths. Of these cases, 1,094 are imported infections and 4,325 are locally transmitted,” she explained.

At least, 3,059 cases have now recovered bringing the total number of active cases to 2,191.

The average age of the cases is 36.6 years, the youngest case being aged 1 month, the oldest being 98 years old and 68% are male.

The country has so far conducted 42,821 COVID-19 tests in 45 Covid-19 testing sites of which 214 tests have been done in the past 24 hours.

She, therefore, thank all those who are practicing prevention measures and asked them to remain vigilant.

“This is particularly important as we plan to open the economy especially as we are preparing to open our airports and preparing to open the schools soon.

“We need an enabling environment for these brave steps that the country wants to take,” she asserted.

Adamson Muula, who is a professor of public health and epidemiology at College of Medicine—a constituent college of the University of Malawi, said he believed that the reduced new coronavirus cases and deaths were a true reflection of the situation on the ground.

But he was quick to add that there could be some deaths not being recorded officially.

Muula observed that the Covid-19 trend in Malawi was far different from that in Europe and America, adding that his earlier prediction was based on the two continents’ trend.

He also attributed the reduction in Covid-19-related deaths to the experience and confidence medical doctors now have on how to manage critically ill patients in the country’s hospitals.

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