BLANTYRE-(MaraviPost)—Malawi government on Tuesday announced the immediate closure of borders as the country is registering new cases of Covid-19 day by day.
According to a letter from Malawi Tourism Council (MTC), signed by Richard Jackson Mdyetseni, directed to its membership, the Ministry of Education has made the decision following a sharp rise of third wave of Covid-19 cases in neighbouring countries.
“We would like to confirm to our membership and the entire tourism private sector that the Ministry of Health has issued a directive to close our borders and airports to all travelers, except for returning citizens, residents and essential travelers. This means no tourists will be allowed into Malawi under the new guidelines,” reads the letter.
The council has, therefore, advised its members to advise all their customers that were due to arrive in Malawi of the development.
Meanwhile, the council is planning to engage the government to push for selective approach to safely manage the pandemic without having to impose a blanket ban on travel.
South Africa, a neighbour to Malawi, “technically” entered its third wave of COVID-19 infections Thursday after recording 9,149 new cases in a 24-hour period, according to figures released by the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD).
The NICD said that for the past seven days, the average number of cases recorded was over 5,000, which exceeds the new wave threshold as defined by the Ministerial Advisory Committee.
“There was an increase of 844 admissions in the past 24 hours and 127 additional in-hospital deaths reported in the past 24 hours,” said the NICD, a division of the National Health Laboratory Service.
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