The Co-Chairperson of Presidential Taskforce on COVID-19 , Dr John Phuka says the novel coronavirus is affecting and killing more men than women.
In his daily update on the pandemic, Dr Phuka advises men to practice precautionary measures to defeat the pandemic.
“Today, I would like to join the State President of the Republic of Malawi, His Excellency Dr Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera who through his 6th weekly radio address spoke on the high occurrence of the disease among men when compared to women,”
“Therefore, I would like to call upon men to realise that more of those affected are men and to practice the prevention measures to reduce occurrence of the disease among men,” Phuka says.
He says other than experiencing high burden of disease, more men have died from COVID-19.
“Of the 174 deaths, 134 are men while 40 are women. Therefore, I would like to encourage men to reach out for care quickly when you feel unwell. This may be associated with several factors but one thing we can easily do something about is to seek for help quickly upon not feeling well,” Dr Phuka says.
In the past 24 hours, Malawi has registered eight new COVID-19 cases, four new recoveries, and no new deaths.
Six of the new cases are locally transmitted and two are imported infections. Of the locally transmitted infections, two are from Dowa, one each from Blantyre, Lilongwe, Mzimba South and Balaka.
The two imported cases were identified among deportees from South Africa. These cases are from Nsanje and Thyolo.
Cumulatively, Malawi has recorded 5,536 cases including 174 deaths. Of these cases, 1,106 are imported infections and 4,430 are locally transmitted.
Cumulatively, 3,147 cases have now recovered bringing the total number of active cases to 2,215. The average age of the cases is 36.6 years, the youngest case being aged 1 month, the oldest being 98 years old and 69% are male. 215 COVID-19 tests were conducted in the past 24 hours, cumulatively 44,511 tests have been conducted in 45 COVID-19 testing centres.
