Malawi on Thursday recorded 644 new COVID-19 cases, 289 new recoveries and 38 new deaths.
All new cases are locally transmitted and include 231 from Blantyre, 178 from Lilongwe, 55 from Mzimba North, 18 from Kasungu, 17 from Phalombe, 13 each from Dowa and Nkhata Bay and 12 each from Mchinji and Mulanje.
Out of the 38 new COVID-19 deaths, 19 are from Lilongwe, six from Blantyre, four from Zomba, two each from Machinga and Kasungu, and one each from Mangochi, Karonga, Balaka, Chikwawa, and Nsanje districts.
Cumulatively, Malawi has recorded 22,304 cases including 628 deaths (Case Fatality Rate is at 2.8%). Of these cases, 1,951 are imported infections and 20,347 are locally transmitted.
A total of 7,249 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 13,918.
In the past 24 hours, 25 cases were admitted while 25 were discharged from the hospital. Currently, a total of 340 active cases are admitted. These include 126 in Lilongwe, 108 in Blantyre, 16 in Mzimba North, 11 in Ntcheu, 10 in Mulanje and nine in Zomba.
On testing, in the past 24 hours, 2,522 COVID-19 tests were conducted. Of these, 1,330 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 25.5%. Cumulatively, 137,588 tests, have been conducted in the country so far.
