Malawi on Saturday reported 477 new COVID-19 cases, 503 new recoveries and 23 new deaths.
All new cases are locally transmitted and include 180 from Blantyre, 89 from Lilongwe, 27 from Balaka, 22 each from Mangochi and Nkhata Bay, 17 from Mzimba South, 13 each from Dedza and Mulanje and nine each from Karonga and Phalombe.
There were 23 new COVID-19 deaths reported on Saturday and 21 deaths from Blantyre that occurred between 21 and 28 January 2021. Chairperson of the Presidential Taskforce on Coronavirus John Phuka said the deaths occurred in private facilities and were not being reported to the District Health Office.
Cumulatively, Malawi has recorded 23,497 cases including 687 deaths (Case Fatality Rate is at 2.9%). Of these cases, 1,951 are imported infections and 21,540 are locally transmitted.
A total of 8,318 cases have now recovered, 134 were lost to follow-up, and 76 are still being investigated to ascertain their outcome. This brings the total number of active cases to 14,282. In the past 24 hours, 41 cases were admitted while 33 were discharged from the hospital. Currently, a total of 315 active cases are admitted and these include 102 in Blantyre and 78 in Lilongwe
Of these, 1,243 tests were through SARS-COV-2 Antigen Rapid Diagnostic test while the rest were through RT-PCR. The positive cases out of the total translates to a positivity rate of 21.4%. Cumulatively, 142,615 tests have been conducted in the country so far.
