COVID19 DEATHS CONTINUE DECLINING
THE country’s covid-19 mortality rate has continued to make a steady drop in the recent days after recording just four deaths country wide in the last 24 hours.
According to a statement released by Ministry of Health permanent secretary Dr Kennedy Malama, the number declined from five to four casualties in the last 24 hours.
Dr Malama said that the mortality rate continued to drop and the casualties were from Copperbelt, Eastern, Muchinga and Southern provinces who all had a death each.
He said the cumulative number of COVID-19 related deaths recorded todate now stood at 3,573 and were classified as 2,682 COVID-19 deaths and 891 COVID-19 associated deaths.
He said based on the ministry’s cumulative statistics the fatality rate was at 1.75% countrywide and considering the global and regional COVID-19 situation, the country was continuing to make progress.
‘’Looking at our country’s pandemic evolution, we anticipate that our overall positivity will continue to drop further to below five percent in the coming weeks, and that the pockets of high positivity in some provinces will also come down,’’ he said.
Dr Malama said of the 977,600 vaccines received to date, a cumulative 548,267 doses had been administered which was at 56% and the wastage rate stood at approximately 4.3%, which was below the recommended 5%.
He said the country recorded 359 new confirmed COVID-19 cases out of 7,086 tests which represented a five percent positivity.
He said the ministry’s clarion call went to the members of the public that as they celebrated the gains made so far there was need to not forget that there were people with COVID-19 in hospitals and there was no time to be complacent.
BY ADRIAN MWANZA
