The Ministry of Health says it has tested 162 contacts of the confirmed Coronavirus cases in Malawi despite tracing 385 contacts.
In a statement posted on its Facebook page today, the ministry said tracing and monitoring of contacts of confirmed COVID-19 is ongoing.
“Currently, a total of 385 contacts of COVID-19 cases have been traced out of which 162 have been tested,” the ministry said.
In Malawi, testing is conducted at four laboratories where a total of 617 test have been conducted. The country has so far registered a total of 33 cases – 8 in Blantyre, 22 in Lilongwe and one each from in Zomba, Chikwawa and Nkhotakota.
There have been 3 deaths (1 from Blantyre and 2 from Lilongwe) and four recoveries (3 from Lilongwe and 1 from Chikwawa).
This week, 14 cases have been confirmed at Kaliyeka in Lilongwe and the Ministry said recently that it was tracing contacts of the cases.
On Saturday afternoon, The Lilongwe District Health Office expressed concern that it was facing difficulties to collect samples from people in the area due to a hostile environment emanating from doubts over the accuracy of tests conducted earlier.
There were claims during the week on social media that the results for 10 people from the area were fake.
To assure Malawians, the World Health Organization vouched for the accuracy of the results saying the tests were conducted by experts using recommended test kits.
