A 32-year-old pregnant woman from Blantyre has died of COVID-19, and now the death toll in Malawi stands at 169.
Co-chairperson of the Coronavirus Taskforce Dr. John Phuka said on Monday that the woman was admitted at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital.
Phuka also announced that Malawi has registered five new COVID-19 cases. Four of the cases are from Blantyre and one is from Lilongwe.
The country has also registered 47 new recoveries, taking the number of recoveries to 3,059.
Cumulatively, Malawi has recorded 5,419 cases. Of these cases, 1,094 are imported infections and 4,325 are locally transmitted.
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 42,821 COVID-19 tests in 45 COVID-19 testing sites of which 214 tests have been done in the past 24 hours.
Phuka noted that the five cases coming out of 214 tests represent the lowest yield of positives since June.
“This is a signal in the right direction, but I will be quick to caution – let us not be too excited yet. We are only testing those with symptoms which means we may have undetected cases within our community, and we continue to lose lives,” he said.
He then urged people in the country to continue practicing prevention measures saying the efforts are beginning to show results.
