HEALTH minister Dr Chitalu Chilufya says results from the Nakonde COVID-19 screening are still being validated.
And Dr Chilufya has announced that Zambia has recorded zero COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours.
Meanwhile, Dr Chilufya says government has so far processed over 2,000 application letters from health workers.
Speaking during his daily COVID-19 briefing, Monday, Dr Chilufya said he was unable to announce new statistics from Nakonde because the screening was still ongoing.
“Nakonde is an infected area and an epicentre and the exercise of screening and testing in Nakonde is ongoing. Nakonde continues to undergo the exercise of screening and testing. His Excellency the President Lungu temporarily closed down the border to facilitate the implementation of public health interventions that are of high impact and that would help us stem the pandemic in the area and beyond. Today, we have deployed human resources into Nakonde we have deployed Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs,) we have commenced disinfection of public places and we have intensified testing for case finding, so active case finding is taking place. We have continued to validate the samples and results from Nakonde and we will update you once the process is finalized. Reporting on the 286 samples that we have tested countrywide, and particularly tested in Lusaka, we have not recorded a single case of COVID-19 in the last 24 hours,” Dr Chilufya said.
“If we look at the people that are being monitoring under quarantine, these are 3,741 persons at high risk that have been discharged from the mandatory quarantine. We have managed to respond 1,866 alerts and these have been cleared as non-positive. We still remain at 267 cases with 7 associated deaths and 117 recoveries.”
Dr Chilufya said Africa had recorded over 2,000 cases in the last 24 hours.
“The global picture, 4,181,218 cases including 283,877 deaths and 1,493,492 recoveries. Africa in 24 hours recorded 2,766 cases and the number of cases cumulatively has risen to 64,752, including 2,301 deaths with 22,683 have recovered this data is as of 7:00 this morning,” he said
Meanwhile, Dr Chilufya revealed that over 2,000 application letters from health workers had been processed by government.
“All the letters from PSMD have been received and people called in to collect their letters. Remember, to ensure that we don’t allow crowding, applications were being done online. Similarly, letters are being given to individuals that are being called, so all these letters that are coming from PSMD are now being issued and this is being done through calling in. So far, we have received from PSMD already letters that are being issued out, 1,700, we also know that 2,224 in total have been processed,” Dr Chilufya said.
When asked if the names of recruited health workers would be published, Dr Chilufya said it was up to the human resource experts.
“Some matters are purely administrative through the human resource experts will tell us if publication of names of people that are recruited is an imperative and if it should be done, it will be done. But I will shy away from the granular administrative details and remain strategic. The President ordered recruitment of staff 2,224 letters have been processed 1,700 ready for issuing,” said Dr Chilufya
Meanwhile, the Judicial and Allied workers Union of Zambia donated 1,000 litres of fuel, Women of Excellence donated 70,000 Chitenge facial masks while First Quantum Minerals employees donated 2,000 masks.
