The Presidential Task Force on Covid-19 says Malawi prevented 8 000 Covid-19 deaths following interventions put in place under its two response plans within a two-year period.

This has been highlighted in the task force report titled ‘The Coronavirus Pandemic in Malawi: Trailing the Waves’ dated March 2022. The report states that the preventable deaths could have been four times more than the current 2 675 registered deaths.

Chalamira-Nkhoma: We have registered positive gains

According to the report, the country also managed to prevent 800 000 potential Covid-19 cases which proved otherwise the perception western countries had on the consequences that would befall African countries amid further spread of the pandemic.

The interventions include enforcement of public health measures such as wearing of face masks, observing social distance, washing hands with soap or using hand sanitisers and immunisation.

Speaking in an interview on Thursday after presenting a copy of the report to Nation Publications Limited in Blantyre, Presidential Task Force on Covid-19 co-chairperson Dr Wilfred Chalamira-Nkhoma said through the response plans, they have also managed to register positive gains.

“Looking at what has happened since that time, it looks like what the world predicted to happen in Africa has actually been mitigated in a bigger sense, including in our own country,” he said.

Chalamira-Nkhoma mentioned recruitment of 3 270 auxiliary teachers, some of whom were being absorbed into the system, construction of 459 boreholes in schools across the country and construction of 402 classroom blocks accommodating 60 students each as some of the success stories.

He also highlighted construction of prison blocks at Mpyupyu in Zomba and Mzuzu with a capacity of 128 inmates each as part of decongesting prison space.

Further, he said isolation units in district hospitals were renovated, bed space increased in central hospitals and construction of oxygen plants.

Chalamira-Nkhoma said one of the critical lessons learnt this far is that while responding to pandemics of such nature, other social needs must not be neglected.

“While we concentrated on Covid-19 there were other diseases that suffered like reproductive health services and other infectious diseases because resources were mostly being directed to combating Covid-19,” he said.

Chalamira-Nkhoma further said while there will always be need for support from partners, resource mobilisation should first and foremost emanate from within Malawi and not from the donors.

He said moving forward, Malawi needs to move away from the emergency mode and treat Covid-19 as a routine, as per World Health Organisation recommendations.

Commenting on the abuse of Covid-19 response funds, Chalamira-Nkhoma said the position of the task force is that those implicated and found in the wrong should be held accountable.

Ombudsman Grace Malera on Tuesday released a report that highlighted how personal allowances dominated expenditure lines for the extra K17 billion Treasury released to finance the Covid-19 response plan at the peak of the pandemic in February 2021.

Apart from controlling officers, the report also named some members of Parliament as having abused the Covid-19 funds.

In a separate interview on Thursday, infectious diseases expert Dr Titus Divala said it is true that in an effort to save people from Covid-19, certain sectors have been improved.

He said: “However, if you look closely, none of the things being mentioned is out of the ordinary. All are things our people needed long before Covid-19.”

Divala said if there is anything that Covid brought to Malawians is a loud message to politicians and decision-makers to invest in public health, social protection, housing and other basic needs.

The first case of Covid-19 was reported in Malawi on April 1 2020.

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