Malawi’s Likoma district registers first Coronavirus case as caseload soar to 2907

BLANTYRE-(MaraviPost)—As Malawi is experiencing a tremendous surge of coronavirus cases, Likoma district has registered first case of the deadly virus.

The district which is an island was the only one which had zero case while the rest of the districts have higher cases.

Director of Health and Social Services for Likoma, Dr Westen Nyirenda confirmed of the development saying the patient ( a Woman) came on Tuesday, 14 July from Nkhatabay.

“It is true; the Woman came from Nkhatabay last Tuesday on 14 July 2020. Was admitted at the hospital isolation ward the same day because was unstable clinically. Today tested positive for corona virus,” said Nyirenda.

Cumulatively, as reported by Dr. John Phuka the Co-chairperson of the Presidential Taskforce, Malawi has recorded 2,907 cases including 59 deaths. Of these cases, 866 are imported infections and 2041 are locally transmitted.

According to Phuka, 1,135 cases have now recovered bringing the total number of active cases to 1,713. The average age of the cases is 35.7 years, the youngest being aged 1 month, the oldest being 93 years and 65 percent are male.

So far Malawi has conducted 23,733 COVID-19 tests in 39 COVID-19 testing centres.

Maneno Chimulala

I am a journalist, educator, and activist with passion for telling stories about social justice, sports and political issues. I graduated from Mzuzu University. I started my career at the Maravi Post online publication in 2012 as an intern while in college. Upon graduating from Mzuzu University I was offered a job as Sports Reporter because of my background as a goalkeeper and rose to the position of sub editor. I also had a short stint with Nyasatimes, Malawi Punch and Malawi Digest. Over the past seven years, I have worked intimately with rural organizations and communities in Malawi on human rights, girl child education and grassroots development projects. With an academic background in education, I also volunteer as male champion for girls’ education under Girls Empowerment Networks (GENET) in Malawi’s South West Education Division (SWED).