BLANTYRE, Malawi (AP) – Malawi is facing a resurgence of COVID-19, which overwhelms the southern African country, where a presidential residence and a national stadium have been turned into field hospitals in life-saving efforts.
President Lazarus Chakwera, who is only six months in office, lost two cabinet ministers to COVID-19 in January amid a wave of national disasters in all 28 districts of Malawi.
Chakwera declared three days of national mourning for the deaths of transport ministers and local government, which shocked the nation and inspired a series of new measures to prevent the virus from spreading to a country with a poor health system. A more contagious strain of coronavirus first reported in South Africa has since been confirmed in Malawi.
“Our medical facilities are terribly inadequate, and our medical staff is smaller than the number,” Chakwera said in a recent address.
Malawi has seen more confirmed cases of the disease exceeding 23,000, including a total of 702 deaths since Monday, according to Dr. John Phuka, co-chair of the presidential working group for COVID-19.
The figures seem relatively small in a country of 18 million, but the 14,000 active cases are often higher than the number of hospital beds established. Officials are setting up makeshift facilities to increase the number of treatment units from 400 to at least 1,500, sometimes pitching tents on hospital lawns.
The State House presidential residence in the southern city of Zomba will soon be transformed into a 100-bed treatment unit, according to officials.
A 300-bed field hospital at Bingu National Stadium has begun receiving patients. Another 300-bed field hospital was opened at a youth center in Blantyre, the country’s largest city. And in the north of Mzuzu, a 200-bed emergency unit has been set up.
The government also recruited 1,128 medical professionals, down from just 1,380, which health officials said was needed.
Chakwera’s government – a retired pastor who was a relatively newcomer to politics when he was elected in June – has already spent more than $ 38 million fighting the pandemic. Last month, he ordered the finance minister to release another $ 22.6 million as soon as possible to meet the demands of the crisis.
Among the measures imposed by Chakwera, which began sending a virus-related address to the nation every Sunday night after the death of its ministers, is the closure of schools for at least 15 days until February 8. all meetings are limited to a maximum of 50 people.
“The situation is quite desperate,” Chakwera said in a recent address, referring to the lack of health infrastructure. “Although we have set up 400 national treatment units in the six months of the mandate, the current wave of infections has completely overwhelmed these facilities.”
Malawi has provided enough doses of AstraZeneca vaccine to vaccinate 20 percent of its population, with the first shipment due in late February, he said. Front-line workers, the elderly and those with basic conditions will have priority, Chakwera told the nation, calling for outside help to fight the pandemic.
The international aid group Doctors Without Borders also responded to the crisis by opening a 40-bed COVID-19 section, fully equipped and managed by its employees. The group noted, however, that setting up more hospital beds may not be enough.
“Malawi urgently needs access to vaccination – which, unfortunately, is unlikely to happen before April 2021 and even then, only for part of its people,” the organization said in a statement. By that time, the pandemic could have already reached its peak and killed many who could have been protected by vaccination.
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