Malawi coronavirus cases soar to 23: Now spreading in the ‘hood’

Ministry of Health Principal Secretary (PS) Dan Namarika has sounded an alarm for Malawians to take a cautious approach in an attempt to tackle the rapid spread of coronavirus, announcing that the country has so far recorded six new cases of Covid-19 bringing the total number case to 23.

Addressing a news conference in Blantyre, Namarika said two of the cases just came into the country from abroad.

The cases are from Kaliyeka Squatter Township in Lilongwe and also the populous ‘hood’ Area 25 in the capital, according to Namarika.

Namarika said Ministry of Health is tracing the contacts of all the cases.

He said the major concern is that these new cases are coming from high density areas.

Namarika explained that Wednesday alone the country has registered five new Covid-19 cases.

One was registered Tuesday bringing the number to 6 cases in the last 24 hours.

He said one of the patient had recently visited India and the other was in Tanzania.

Namarika cautioned that based on the Kuunika Modelling of the virus pandemic, out of the 17 million population, Lilongwe could be the hardest hit with 1.5 million Covi-19 patients’ expected and 5 000 deaths.

Malawi has a relatively small number of infections compared to other countries, but there are concerns a sudden surge in cases could lead to a major outbreak in the landlocked southern African poor nation.

Commentators are calling on authorities to enforce social distancing measures and do widespread testing for Covid-19.