FDH Bank Plc scales up fight against anticipated CoVID-19 fourth wave by donating surgical gloves to Blantyre DHO
FDH Bank Plc has donated 410 boxes of medical gloves to Blantyre District Health Office (DHO) in a bid to upscale the fight against the impending 4th wave of the CoVID-19 pandemic.
At the handover of the gloves, FDH Bank’s CoVID-19 committee chairperson, Chrispin Chikwama said they were prompted to take action following the recent escalation of cases including the new Omicron variant.
“FDH Bank Plc is a homegrown bank that cares about the community that we operate in and we have been observing the rise in cases which prompted us to take action in the fight against the 4th wave,” Chikwama said.
“These gloves will keep our frontline health workers safe during this period of high transmission which will assist in fighting the spread of the virus.”
On behalf of Blantyre DHO, Chief Medical Officer Dr. Milliam Jere said the DHO is grateful to FDH Bank Plc for the kind gesture.
“This is timely considering that Blantyre is at an early phase of the fourth wave of CoVID-19 having had registered 55 cases on 15 December 2021, representing a 5% positivity rate.”
In a side interview in light of the current situation, Blantyre Director of Health and Social Services, Dr. Gift Kawalazira urged the general public to get vaccinated against CoVID-19 to help fight Covid-19.
“This will allow their bodies ample time to develop immunity against the disease before we get to the climax of the 4th wave,” he said. “Protect yourself and your loved ones. No one is safe until everyone is safe.”
As of Sunday evening, the country registered 329 new CoVID-19 cases, 20 new recoveries but no new related death.
Of the new cases, 327 are locally transmitted with Lilongwe having the highest at 150, Blantyre at 64 and 78 from Mzimba North.
Cumulatively, Malawi has recorded 64,741 cases including 2,311 deaths at case fatality rate of 3.57% while a total of 59,156 cases have now recovered at the rate of 91.37% bringing the total number of active cases to 3,042.
In the past 24 hours of Sunday, there were 13 new admissions and no new discharges in the treatment units with 33 active cases hospitalised — 21 in Blantyre, five in Lilongwe, three in Ntcheu, two in Mwanza, and one each in Mzimba North and Thyolo districts.
Nine of the new admissions are not vaccinated, two got one dose, and two are fully vaccinated.
A total of 1,653,578 vaccine doses have been administered in the country so far and cumulatively 998,651 received the first dose of AstraZeneca vaccine while 371,086 have had their second dose.
A total of 283,841 have so far received Johnson and Johnson while in the past 24 hours of Sunday, 10,811 and 3,234 people have received first dose and second of AstraZeneca vaccine respectively — bringing a cumulative figure of 654,927 people that are fully vaccinated.
In her situation report, co-chairperson of the presidential task force on CoVID-19, Health Minister Khumbize Kandodo Chiponda pleaded with the general public that as the country experiences an increased number of new cases and with more people being affected, it “entails having a lot of people being contacts of the confirmed cases”.
“It has to be noted that CoVID-19 affects people in different ways with the majority being asymptomatic or have mild symptoms and will recover without hospitalization.”
She reiterated that CoVID-19’s most common symptoms include fever, dry cough, and tiredness, while in some patients it presents with aches and pains, sore throat, diarrhoea, conjunctivitis, headache, loss of taste or smell, rash on the skin, or discolouration of fingers or toes.
“When one has these symptoms, there is need to have a CoVID-19 test and the public is reminded that the CoVID-19 tests for diagnosis purposes is free of charge.
“It is important to note that if one experiences serious symptoms such as difficulty in breathing or shortness of breath, chest pain or pressure, loss of speech or movement, immediate medical attention should be sought. The early care seeking leads to positive treatment outcomes.”
She also encouraged the public that the CoVID-19 vaccine have proven to be a game changer in the fight against the pandemic “as it is helping to reduce the risk of developing severe disease, hospitalization and deaths when one contracts the virus”.
“Our data shows that though we are experiencing a high numbers of new confirmed cases, only few people are being admitted in our treatment units due to severe CoVID-19 and the majority of those admitted are unvaccinated.
“If we have most of the eligible vaccinated, we should be able to have only few people developing severe COVID-19. The best time to get vaccinated is now so that our bodies are prepared to fight the disease in case we are exposed to the virus.
“We have adequate stocks of COVID-19 vaccines in all our vaccination sites and it is free of charge and let me appreciate those that have already received the vaccine for the good and wise decision that they have made and let us encourage one another to get vaccinated.”
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