Malawi has registered 320 new COVID-19 cases, 248 new recoveries and 19 new deaths in the past 24 hours.
Of the new cases 317 are locally transmitted: 206 from Blantyre, 65 from Lilongwe, six each from Nkhata Bay and Ntcheu, five each from Dowa and Mchinji, four each from Karonga, Mangochi, and Mulanje, three each from Chiradzulu and Dedza, two from Salima, and one each from Balaka, Likoma, Neno, and Nsanje Districts.
Three of the new cases are imported and they involve two new arrivals at Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Dowa and one who was identified at Songwe border and was heading to Lilongwe District.
The 19 new COVID-19 deaths have been registered. These include eight from Lilongwe, five from Blantyre, two each from Mulanje and Zomba, and one each from Mchinji and Ntcheu Districts.
Cumulatively, Malawi has recorded 27,195 cases including 856 deaths (Case Fatality Rate is at 3.1%). Of these cases, 1,984 are imported infections and 25,211 are locally transmitted.
A total of 11,596 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 14,533.
In the past 24 hours, 28 cases were hospitalised while 44 were discharged. Currently, a total of 228 active cases are hospitalized, including 66 in Blantyre, 53 in Lilongwe, 20 in Mzimba North and nine in Chiradzulu.
On testing, in the past 24 hours, 1,429 COVID-19 tests were conducted. Of these, 448 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 22.4%. Cumulatively, 159,756 tests have been conducted in the country so far.
