As the fight against Cholera continues, Malawi’s leading producer and distributor of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, Castel Malawi Limited, has donated to the ministry of health some assorted sanitation materials worth K20 million.
This comes as recently the Malawi government through the presidential taskforce on the fight against Cholera and Covid-19 wooed local companies and organisations to come out and complement government’s efforts in fighting the cholera outbreak which started in March last year.
In response to the call, a total of 20 health centres from some of the waste hit districts including; Blantyre, Machinga, Zomba, Lilongwe and Mzuzu, have been earmarked to benefit from the donation and some of the materials include; protective groves, hand washing soap, sanitary buckets, just to mention a few.
Speaking to members of the press after a hand over ceremony on Tuesday in Blantyre, Castel Malawi Limited HR and Corporate Affairs Director Gloria Zimba, said the gesture is part of the company’s corporate social responsibility policy.
Zimba said Castel Malawi Limited put the health of all Malawians at heart and added that that’s what has compelled the company to make the donation saying failing which, the outbreak may hit back at the company in one way or the other.
“As Castel Malawi we have our policy on corporate social responsibility and we have six pillars and one of the pillars is health and safety. So, as for the health part, we can not only be concerned with health of our employees, we are also concerned about health of our customers and consumers.
“So, cholera has hit communities and this means that some of our customers and consumers are affected and even if they are not our customers or consumers, they are our stakeholders and if we do not take part in fighting cholera, we will be affected in one way or the other,” said Zimba.
Earlier this year, Castel Malawi Limited joined the Ministry of Health in spreading Cholera prevention messages to the public in the major cities as well as running a social media campaign to reach the digital community.
Speaking on behalf of the ministry of health, Dr Mirriam Jere Nyasulu who is the chief medical officer for Blantyre DHO, commended Castel Malawi Limited for the gesture which she said is so timely and helpful especially now when cholera cases are skyrocketing.
Jere told members of the press that the donation will go a long way in improving the state of sanitation amongst the 20 health facility, but she, however asked well wishers to also consider helping health facilities in rural areas saying the outbreak has also extended to such areas.
“We are very grateful for the se materials donated by Castel Malawi Limited which have come at the right time as we are still fighting cholera outbreak. However, we have seen rising numbers of cholera cases in our rural facilities, so we are pleading with Castel and other well wishers to as well help rural health facilities,” said Jere Nyasulu.
As of Monday February 6th, 2023, Malawi registered 39,170 confirmed cases while 1,277 people have died of the cholera outbreak and the fatality rate is currently at 3.26%.
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