Government has announced that international schools will reopen on Monday while public schools may reopen on January 23.

Updating the media today, Minister of Health Dr Chitalu Chilufya said government had decided to review the reopening of schools earlier than January 30 because the Cholera epidemic was almost under control.

“We are clearly winning this fight and there is need to normalise business in places where there has been disruptions. So beginning tomorrow, there shall be reopening of certain places. We have now rolled back the dates when we need to review the reopening of schools from January 30, we are back to January 23rd for public schools. The Minister of Education will give a comprehensive statement on many other variables to do with this including how they will compensate for that one week break. And tomorrow, in our joint update, we will be able to get a comprehensive statement from the Minister of Education,” said Dr Chilufya.

“The international schools that have their school calenders calibrated to international calenders of their specific regions will be allowed to reopen next week and this means that all of them will need to be inspected and should they meet the criteria of the Public Health Act and the Food and Drugs Act, they will be allowed to reopen so we will not disrupt the calender of the international schools on condition that they have sanitary facilities, good water supply and they pass the tests that our inspectors are doing routinely. Some of these schools have already been inspected and they will reopen as scheduled next week. One school that has been assessed and will definitely reopen on the 16th is the American International School.”

And Dr Chilufya said Lusaka had recorded 87 new cases in the last 24 hours while 60 per cent of the multi sectorial team’s target had been vaccinated.

Meanwhile, his Local Government counterpart Vincent Mwale announced that Libala Market, New Soweto Market, Mwamba Luchembe Market in George Compound and Kabwata Market had been reopened.

He said government would soon announce a location that had been agreed upon for street vendors who were trading from the demolished Munyaule Market.