Malawi has recorded 69 new recoveries and two new deaths, taking the total number of recoveries to 2,998 and the death toll to 168.
Chairperson of the Presidential Taskforce on Coronavirus John Phuka said the new deaths are a 20-year-old female from Blantyre and a 75-year-old male from Ntchisi who has died in Lilongwe.
Phuka also announced 60 new COVID-19 cases. All 60 new cases are locally transmitted infections and they include 27 from Blantyre, 15 from Mzimba South, 13 from Nkhotakota, two each from Chiradzulu, and Nkhata Bay, and one from Balaka.
Cumulatively, Malawi has recorded 5,382 cases including 168 deaths. Of these cases, 1,091 are imported infections and 4,291 are locally transmitted.
A total of 2,998 cases have now recovered bringing the total number of active cases to 2,216.
The average age of the cases is 36.6 years, the youngest case being aged 1 month, the oldest being 98 years old and 68% are male.
The country has so far conducted 42,015 COVID-19 tests in 45 COVID-19 testing sites of which 541 tests have been done in the past 24 hours.
Phuka noted that the number of recoveries is increasing every day and said this gives hope in the fight against COVID-19 pandemic.
He, however, warned those that have recovered follow all preventive measures to avoid getting re-infected with coronavirus.
He said: “Further, the local transmission in our country is 4 times higher than the imported cases. Therefore, we need to focus our attention on stopping the community transmission by limiting the human to human transmission of COVID-19.
“I would like to ask each one of us to do self -reflection as more people are getting infected daily. Our lives have been disrupted greatly due to this disease and the faster we deal with COVID-19 the better.”
