Friday, March 29, 2024

Health Ministry PS dismayed at Assertions of faking COVID numbers to stop Opposition Parties from Campaigning

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Ministry of Health Permanent Secretary Technical Services Dr. Kennedy Malama has expressed dismay at some assertions being made by some members of society that the Ministry of Health is falsifying COVID-19 cases to stop opposition political parties from holding rallies during the campaign period.

Speaking at a media briefing Dr. Malama said that in the last 24 hours 558 new cases have been recorded, representing a positivity rate of 6.9 the highest number recorded in over 2 months since the country came out of the second wave.

Dr. Malama said that the information shared by the Ministry is based on evidence and tests conducted, collective information that is gathered and given to the stakeholders who are the Zambian people so that they can take appropriate action.

“When you look at the team here, these are technocrats, we will be failing in our duties and responsibilities if we gave wrong figures, it is as good as resigning from your position,

“Why should I come here and tell the nation that we recorded 558 cases of COVID-19 when actually it’s 2? So what we are informing the Zambian people is that ‘this is the situation in our country,’ informed by the testing we are doing and the results we are getting.” Dr. Malama said.
Dr. Malama warns that from epidemiological reviews it is clear that the COVID-19 situation is worsening daily and the coming few weeks will be critical.

“Our hope lies in the fact that working together as a people we can change the landscape of COVID 19 in our country and avert the much dreaded Health and socio-economic disruptions we saw during the 1st and 2nd waves and even worse.” He said.

He further announced that the Zambia Medicines Regulatory Authority (ZAMRA) has now approved five (5) COVID 19 vaccines for use in Zambia, following stringent review processes undertaken and riding on the World Health Organization Emergency Use listing of the vaccines.
“These ZAMRA approved vaccines are for Zambia are;

Sinopharm (Vero Cells), Jansen (Johnson & Johnson), AstraZeneca Covishield, AZD 1222 5 – Korean AstraZeneca and the Pfizer Biotech.” He said
He added that Government is taking all necessary steps to mobilize vaccines for the Zambian people and we will continue updating the nation.
“As we have stated before the COVID 19 vaccines are able to prevent infection, severe disease and death. Is it possible for someone who was vaccinated to test positive to COVID 19? The answer is Yes its possible but changes of getting severe disease and dying from COVID 19 are far much lower compared to the unvaccinated.” Dr Malama said

The Permanent Secretary has also reiterated the call for Zambians to take all necessary measures to avoid further spread of COVID-19 by adhereing to the stipulated prevention guidelines.

“Let me stress the importance of avoiding super spreader events such as weddings, kitchen parties, chilangamulilos, public political rallies among others. Super spreader events have been documented in our country, the region and globally as fertile grounds for the rapid spread of the covid 19 infection and disease.” He said

15 COMMENTS

  1. Why has lungu banned ECZ from publishing presidential candidates declared assets including his ??????

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  2. People should just be serious when it comes to follow Covid guidelines for a health person.
    Death and sicknesses is not about politics, if you don’t follow the corona virus guidelines you will die.Waiting until the people start dying publicly will not help prevention is better than cure.

    Over to you KZ (Kaiser Zulu) Bebe Abantu..

  3. PF government, especially ministry of Health cannot be trusted. Actually there no wing or department that cannot be trusted. What happened to COVID funds audit? Honeybee govt. We just need to vote PF out

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  4. As MoH you should be concentrating on actions that will reduce COVID infections and increasing the vaccination so that people can conduct political rallies without this failure induced restrictions. Dont engage yourself in castigating people who suspect that you are faking COVID cases figures. Do your work and measure your success as the extent of reducing restrictions imposed by this COVID!! As MoH, surely you should not be proudly saying “we have failed to reduce COVID so adhere to our restrictions especially during the election campaign period”. This is irritating to citizens and the opposition political parties. Why dont you deploy your people at political rallies to ensure that only people with masks enter rally grounds and to support political parties in adhering to your…

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  5. Well spoken ba PS, desperate politicians have a tendence to shoot at anything and thereby waste their ammunition on things that are not real targets. The health sector please continue to do your job professionally and let the headless politicians continue in their tail spin events.

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  6. Very shameful and disgusting accusations from the tribal childish upnd. It is an insult to all those millions who have lost their lives. Hh had covid and was no where to be seen. Today he is downplaying the virus. We hope he gets Indian variant so that he learns a lesson

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  7. Zambia should have finished vaccination on 10 million by now. But PS is focused on helping unpopular PF stop the surge of UPND.

  8. Science doesn’t lie. Politics inflates. If you mix the two someone’s bound to get hurt. All I can say.

  9. akapS – Why is the opposition sleeping on that issue then? They should be on ECZ to show what candidates are really worth…

  10. You are faking it because there is no urgency in procuring vaccines and telling us what’s causing the raise in the virus…

  11. The corrupt PF government is doing a terrible job on almost everything, but the MoH is of course the worst department of all. The most unproductive, the most unprofessional and of course the most CORRUPT!

  12. Solwezi Giggles Green night club is open evry day packed with pipo there was even a live show on Friday, why has PF government allowed this if there was COVID-19.

  13. There is nothing dismaying here. We all know Dr Malama is working on Orders from State House. The Covid-19 infection figures are obviously being inflated to justify the banning of Rallies by Opposition Parties. ECL should be that u can’t have free,fair and credible Elections without Political Parties being allowed to freely campaign to voters. Freedom of Assemble is a prerequisite to Credible Elections. The writing is on the wall.

  14. Opposition should just campaign like what Lungu is doing right now in Luapula.

    Trouble with thieves is that they think they are clever.

    Your father is a thief.

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