Thursday, March 28, 2024

72 individuals Denied access into Zambia and 272 placed under 14 days quarantine- Health PS

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As Point of Entry surveillance is being strengthened for surveillance of Covid-19 and several of its variants, the Ministry of Health has denied 72 individuals access into the country and placed 272 others under 14 days quarantine.

In a statement, Ministry of Health Permanent Secretary Technical Services Dr. Kennedy Malama said the government is working on strengthening laboratory and diagnosis platform with the participation of Private Hospitals with a focus on the Points of Entry (POE).

‘On the other hand, our ongoing POE surveillance saw 4,870 travelers screened in the last 24 hours, of whom 72 were denied entry and 272 placed under 14-days quarantine.” he said.

He added that school surveillance is also ongoing and in the last 24hrs, only 1 student was found positive out of the 326 screened and tested countrywide.

Dr. Malama said the government has noted evidence of ongoing community transmission and re-emphasized the call to enhance all pillars in the response as progress into the cold season amidst laxity in adherence to public health guidelines and the threats posed by the SARSCOV 2 variants of concern.

He also said that teams under the Ministry were conducting data cleaning and verification following the pause in administering of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine in order to ensure that those that got the first dose are able to get the second dose.

“As we informed the Nation, we paused the AstraZeneca vaccination program and now awaits the second dose administration scheduled to commence on 23rd June 2021.” Dr. Malama said

“However, in the past three days we have been administering the second dose of Sinopharm vaccine which has paused and will resume on 13th June for those who recently received their first dose of the vaccine,” he added.

He further said to date 136,763 doses of the vaccines of both AstraZeneca and Sinopharm have been administered in Zambia.

“In the last 24 hours, we recorded Seventy-Eight (78) new confirmed cases out of 3,471 tests conducted (2.2% positivity). This brings the cumulative number of confirmed cases recorded to date to 93,279.

The breakdown of the new cases and positivity (given in brackets) by province are as follows: Central 12 (3.6%), Copperbelt 6 (0.8%), Eastern 6 (2.3%), Lusaka 46 (5.1%), Luapula 1 (1.2%), Northern 16 (7.1%), North-western 2 (4.0%), Southern 2 (0.3%) and Western 4 (2.4%).

There were no new cases detected from the tests conducted in Muchinga province. By district, the 78 new cases were recorded from eighteen (18) districts, with the majority coming from Lusaka (43) and Kazungula (11) districts; the remaining 16 districts recorded fewer than five (5) cases each.

On a sad note, we recorded three new deaths in the last 24 hours, one each from Copperbelt, Eastern, and Lusaka provinces. All three deaths have been classified as COVID deaths a situation reminding us that COVID-19 is still with us and we remain vulnerable to further spread, increased admissions to hospitals, and deaths.

The cumulative number of COVID-19 related deaths recorded to date now stands at 1,271, classified as 714 COVID deaths and 557 COVID-19 associated deaths. A total of 44 discharges were recorded from both the COVID-19 isolation facilities and home management, bringing the cumulative number of recoveries to 91,200 (98% recovered). There are currently 808 active cases, of whom 760 (94%) are under community management and 48 (6%) are admitted to our COVID-19 isolation facilities; we had 5 new admissions in the last 24 hours. Among those admitted, 37 (77%) are on Oxygen therapy and 9 (19%) are in critical condition.”

Dr. Malama further urged people not to drop their guard in efforts to prevent COVID-19 adding that all must play a role diligently for the country to break the chains of transmission in our communities.

“The clarion call is to our leaders at various levels including Political leaders to provide the much-needed guidance to the communities to steer a social movement in adhering to the Public Health Guidelines. Countries who have won the fight against COVID-19 have all worked as a collective,” he said.

9 COMMENTS

  1. Can we also introduce the lusambo effect of whlping. As for tarino you poor boy you have lost steam. You will soon also join pf

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  2. This report is incomplete. It does not say exactly why the 72 were denied entry into the country: did they test positive? Where were they coming from, what nationalities are they and at which point of entry were they turned away? If it’s the International Airport, I assume they must have had negative PCR tests to enable them to board the plane.
    In this time when international travelling is becoming possible again, it’s important to give people accurate information, otherwise they’ll have no option but to simply make their own assumptions.

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  3. Just wait they will soon be going to the hospital counting every deaths as covid-19 like Chilufya was doing last year.

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  4. More than a year after Covid-19 came to Zambia and NOW the corrupt PF government introduces measures they should have taken a year ago. Two and a half months to go to the election, may have something to do with it?

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