Written by Angella Semu
Residents of chikwawa district have condemned government in strongest terms for being untruthful in how they are handling the novel coronavirus cases in Malawi.
This has come following the imprecise circumstances surrounding the test results of one of the patients who reportedly tested positive for Covid-19 in the district.
According to the said patient who was identified as Ishmael Maluwa from Chikwawa district, it is still uncertain if he tested positive for Covid-19 or not as he received two different test results on the same day from healthy workers from blantyre and Chikwawa districts.
In an interview with Ufulu radio, Maluwa disclosed that on 4th April, 2020, healthy workers from Chikwawa district visited him at his residence in N’gabu and took samples from him after he reported some signs associated with Coronavirus. A week later, Maluwa alleged he received two different test results which contradicted each other.
“On 4th April, 2020 the healthy workers from Chikwawa came to my house together with other healthy personnel from Blantyre district who took some samples to check for Covid-19. A week later , one healthy personnel from Chikwawa came to my house to inform me about my test results and he revealed that I tested negative for Covid-19.
“However on the same day during the evening, healthy workers from Blantyre visited me and asked me to disregard the initial test results. They told me according to the test that they carried out, I had tested positive for Covid-19,” said Maluwa.
Following the incident, Maluwa has pleaded with government to tell him the real results as he doesn’t believe that he has coronavirus following the two different test results that he was given.
Chikwawa District Hospital Health Office Spokesperson, Setti Piriminta has agreed that the said patient was given two different test results. He has however said he cannot point out what exactly happened to have the contradicting results and he is hoping that there will be clarifications surrounding the incident from those who conducted the tests.
Commenting on the matter, group village Sigaleti from the area where Maluwa hails from has expressed dismay in how Ministry of health has handled the matter as it has caused panic in the area.
“We don’t know what to believe now, we have received two different test results for Maluwa and they contradict each other. People are now living in fear in this area following this incident and we just wanted the Ministry responsible for this to tell us the truth,” Said Sigaleti.
Meanwhile, Malawi has 17 confirmed cases of coronavirus, 2 deaths and 3 people have recovered so far from the novel coronavirus which has claimed the lives of at least 154,086 people across the world.
