By PRISCA LUMINGU
THE Ministry of Health says it is becoming evident that the third wave of Covid-19 is moving at an unprecedented pace as the country recorded 988 new infections and nine deaths in the last 24 hours.
And the Ministry of Health is tomorrow scheduled to open up the new Lusaka specialised hospital to provide an extra 160 beds for the Covid-19 patients following a spike in cases.
Ministry of Health Permanent Secretary for Technical Services, Dr Kennedy Malama said barely three weeks into it, the ministry is already seeing the facilities receiving higher numbers of Covid-19 admissions more than it experienced during the two previous waves.
Dr. Malama said the ministry is also conducting genomic sequencing to keep track of the circulating strains and analysing the linkage to the severe cases being experienced to inform policy and operative decision making.
He said Zambia has 4, 565 active cases, of which 4, 366 are under community management and 199 are admitted to the Covid-19 isolation facilities.
Dr. Malama said in the last 24 hours, there have been 70 new admissions which are unprecedented admissions in a day.
