The Presidential Task Force on Covid-19 says despite a drop in the number of new cases, the country is registering more deaths among the unvaccinated population.

According to Covid-19 update on Saturday, between January 1 and January 28 2022, Covid-19 has killed 193 people, and out of these 170 or 88 percent were not vaccinated.

The update shows that 16 (8.2 percent) had their vaccine status unknown, four had one dose of AstraZeneca, two were fully vaccinated while one was not eligible for the vaccines.

This builds on The Nation’s analysis early this month which confirmed how deadly the pandemic is unvaccinated people.

Out of 67 deaths during a five-week period between November 29 2021 and January 2 2021, 64 were not vaccinated.

This means, the pandemic, in two months from November 29 2021 to January 29 2022 has claimed a combined 260 lives out of these 234 (90 percent) were not vaccinated, 17 (6.5 percent) had their vaccine status unknown, three (1.11 percent) were fully vaccinated, one was not eligible, while five (1.9 percent) had taken first doses of AstraZeneca.

Presidential Task Force on Covid-19 chairperson Dr Wilfred Chalamila Nkhoma said deaths among the unvaccinated are occurring, especially in rural settings where members delay to take the sick for medical care.

He said: “Further, we continue to notice that the great majority of those that are being admitted to hospitals and those that are dying from Covid-19 have not been vaccinated.”

In an interview, Physicians Assistants Union of Malawi (Paum) president Solomon Chomba said with most hospitalisations and deaths involving the non-vaccinated, it should be a strong message to any reasonable citizen to make the right decision to get the jab.

He said: “The only way to avoid the worst case scenarios is through building of our body immunity against Covid-19 virus through vaccination by at least between 60-80 percent of our population which is at the moment around 19 million.”

Epidemiologist Dr Titus Divala said the quickest way of achieving access to vaccines is through political means, establishing a strong political force from the continent whose voice can be heard by the rest of the international community.

Malawi targets to vaccinate 11 million or 60 percent of the population with the Covax Facility, a multi-donor consortium providing vaccines to poor countries, providing vaccines for 3.8 million people.

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