Zambia starts seeing decline in COVID-19 cases

LUSAKA, July 5 — Zambia has seen a remarkable reduction in the number of new COVID-19 cases in the past week compared to the previous week, its health ministry said on Sunday.
Kennedy Malama, Permanent Secretary in charge of Technical Services in the Ministry of Health, said a comparative analysis of the last two weeks shows a reduction in the overall number of new cases from 19,535 to 15,714.
“Similarly, our overall positivity for the week dropped slightly from 26 percent to 24 percent. It is, however, too early to tell as yet if the worst is behind us,” he said.
He further said the country saw some reduction in daily admissions and deaths but noted that the ministry was committed to ensuring that this continued.
According to him, there was a need to address the root causes of the pandemic by taking the fight to the community.
He further announced that the country will be receiving 228,000 additional doses of AstraZeneca on July 5.
He thanked the COVAX Facility for the support in the acquisition of the first batch of vaccines for the vaccination program.
Meanwhile, the country recorded 1,795 new cases in the last 24 hours out of 7,531 tests done.
This brings the cumulative cases to 164,282 while 2,248 patients were discharged, bringing the total recoveries to 143,128.
The country however lost 46 people, bringing the total deaths to 2,443. (Xinhua)