HEALTH Minister Sylvia Masebo says Zambia has recorded a slight increase in Covid-19 cases in the past two weeks, urging those who are not yet vaccinated to get the jab.

And Zambia Medical Association (ZMA) Secretary General Dr Kaumba Tolopu says Covid-19 is here to stay and the only reason it is no longer as harsh as it used to be is because the majority are vaccinated.

Last week, the Ministry of Health recorded an increase in COVID cases. On Friday, 84 cases were reported out of 1056 tests and no deaths were recorded.

In an interview, Masebo urged all those who had not yet gotten vaccinated to do so.

“I can confirm that there has been some slight increase of COVID cases being recorded in the last two weeks. So basically, it is important that first of all, those who may not be vaccinated ensure that they are vaccinated and take usual precautions at a time like this when the weather is getting cold and it’s important to keep warm and then also ensure you wash your hands. I’ve also seen that some big supermarkets in the country that used to have sanitisers at the entrance have dropped that, why would a big supermarket stop providing sanitisers at the entrance of their shops? Those hand wipes, buckets of soap, why would they stop that? These kinds of things should be a way of life so I don’t expect people to stop washing their hands with soap as regularly as possible whenever they know that they have been out and about and I also don’t understand why someone would be eating food that is not covered or food that has flies around it or buying food from streets that are not clean,” she said.

Masebo also said people should always go to the hospital and avoid self prescribing.

“Zambians generally need to live a healthy life by ensuring that they take care of themselves, that should be a way of life and people should know that there has been a lot of flus around, the bad flus that have come and people should take precautions and if they feel sick, they should seek medical care quickly, they should not start prescribing themselves. There is a tendency to self prescribe and sometimes, hoping it’s just a normal cough, a normal flu, there’s nothing normal, people should always seek medical attention and people should always wash their hands, eat clean food, drink clean water, especially the water people are drinking they must guard the water they are drinking, water is very important but they should ensure it is chlorinated or boiled,” said Masebo.

“The children going to school that were never vaccinated should get vaccinated, parents and guardians should ensure that they get vaccinated. We have seen a number of children get infected from school. If we don’t follow these measures, we can see an increase in the cases and those who are smart should continue to wear masks especially in crowded places. I think it’s very important now when you are in crowded places to cover yourself with a mask, it helps a lot”.

And in a separate interview, Dr Tolopu said Covid-19 was here to stay.

“I think it is not a secret that COVID is obviously here to stay, the only issue is that because of the vaccination worldwide that was robust, the effects of COVID-19 are not as bad as they were when Covid-19 just started. So yes, we have noticed a rise again in the pattern of positive cases of COVID-19 in the country but you also can notice when it comes to the total number of deaths recorded, we are still at zero so it’s part and parcel of our diseases. I think the World Health Organisation lifted the travel ban and lifted the declaration that it’s a pandemic so COVID-19 has been accepted as one of the existing conditions currently. So we will still see sometimes where COVID cases are rising because it behaves like a flu and we are in the cold season so it is expected that you will see some numbers increasing. What is important at the same time is the fact that most of our population is vaccinated against COVID-19 and most of the population has also achieved herd immunity so you will see that even those that are affected or infected with COVID, the symptomatology is not as severe as it used to be,” he said.

He said there was a need for continued monitoring of the disease.

“This just goes to show that in as much as we still have Covid-19, it is now just like any other disease, we still have it, it will still continue to be there but if you look at the disease pattern where we are coming from and where we are, I don’t think there is cause for us to panic or worry. Do we have to keep track of the disease? Yes, because it’s a viral infection and today it might be a mild disease, tomorrow we don’t know what it may be. It is important that for public health concerns, we keep track of this disease, we continue to monitor, continue to do surveillance to see the areas that are affected, the symptoms that these patients are presenting so that information is what will inform us on what to do,” said Dr Tolopu.