By Francisco Mwanza
The Covid-19 response team which aims at slowing down the spread of Covid-19 desease in Mzuzu expressed concerns over the lack of behaviour change among residents in the city,more especially in the places where people gather for different activities.
The chairman for the response team Dr Dauglas Lungu said despite the awareness campaign being delivered it is worrisome to see large number of people still gathering in public places like markets,bars,churches and the like.
“Now that Mzuzu has registered some cases, people should accept to change their behaviour to prevent the further spread of the virus in the city by avoiding places where more people gather,using mask and allways keep a social distance in addition to watching hands with soap or using sanitizers.”said the chair.
In response to this,the mayor for Mzuzu city, councillor Kondwani Brian Nyasulu said shortly the council will roll out its plans to minimise gatherings in public plases.
The mayor further said that they have deliberately included the enforcement team which has the police and the army to help in fullfilling some key goals and duties like decongesting public places and coordinating inspection campaigns among others.
Ash Rashid Bano,who is one of the members of the Mzuzu Asian business community covid19 task force and also an honorary councillor of mzuzu city council.
So far donated goods worth over K4million towards the renovation of the Covid-19 isolation centre at the Mzuzu central hospital and is also renovating part of wezi clinic isolation facility under Mzuzu Asian bussines community.
He also expressed his worries that most Malawians live below the poverty line, so its difficulty for them to avoid visiting places like markets where they buy or sell goods on daily basis to earn a living.
Bano urged the goverment, Malawians and also all the stakeholders to come up with measures which can help people to have necessities while at home, in order to avoid the gatherings which can lead to the spread of corona virus
The Mzuzu Covid-19 task force came up with the budget of about MK126 million to help in the fight against the pandemic but only managed to source about MK6m.
The Task force is therefore asking for help of cash and kind from well wisher to effect their duties.
In a space of only two weeks, the northern region has registered 4 Covid-19 cases, with one in Karonga and three in Mzuzu.
