Govt projects 90% Covid-19 recovery

The Ministry of Health (MoH) has said Malawi could be one of the countries in Africa to experience a 90 percent recovery rate of the novel coronavirus disease (Covid-19) .

However, MoH director of quality management and digital health department Andrew Likaka, in an interview on Tuesday, said this could be the case only if all Covid-19 preventive measures which government has in place can be followed.

“The country may register over 16 million cases and 50 000 deaths by April next year. However, there is a high probability that we may register an excess of 90 percent recovery rate because all the cases recorded are mild,” he said.

However, Likaka warned that more cases could be recorded in due course if people flout the gazetted preventive measures.

He said: “The three deaths that have been recorded were in a critical condition, but they did not have access to intensive care because they

reported their situations late to respective health facilities.”

Likaka said the projection on live cases and deaths was made using the mathematical and epidemiological modelling approach which looks at cases recorded within 63 days.

On the pattern of illness, he highlighted that the most vulnerable people are the elderly as well as those who have other ailments such as diabetes.

Likaka added that those without other situations have higher chances of recovering if infected.

On his part, health rights campaigner Maziko Matemba said the country may see a serious increase in Covid-19 cases because politicians have not been exemplary in observing the preventive measures as they are currently busy importing party followers from various places to their rallies.

He said in an interview: “It is possible that we can have 50 000 deaths, but I do not want to comment much on those figures. These figures are also projected using the Kuunika model, but they will also depend on whether we are following

regulations.”

Matemba added that if Malawians continue to live in denial like they are now, then cases will increase and that will also largely depend on the interaction that people have.

“However, government needs to consider this in terms of approach. Among others, we need to know the statistics of HIV positive people, those who are diabetic as well as the elderly. These are people that we need to be worried about since they are the ones most vulnerable,” he said.