Message from the Superintendent Dr Lalick Banda:
“Welcome to the first monthly bulletin for St Francis’ Hospital. It is my sincere hope that through this monthly bulletin we will be able to share with our colleagues and partners the various developmental milestones at the hospital, our aspirations and the challenges we are facing as an institution.

Download the bulletin here.

Ms Chaze Sibamba, Social Worker at St Francis’ Hospital reports:
“More measures have been put in place, handwashing points have been put around the hospital and at the Main Entrance, all clients coming in the hospital have to go through the triage shelter which is just somewhere outside, where they are asked of any history of travel and other questions related to covid. The guards at the entrance always have boxes for the face masks, given to all clients entering the hospital.
Bedsiders are not allowed in the wards to avoid congestions, only one person is allowed but are also adivised to stay outside the ward and only enter when needed. They not allowed to bring children.

Testing was mandatory but now the government changed the system to only test individuals with suspected symptoms. So now at OPD there room 9 tis being used for swabbing and testing clients. Room 6 is being used as a holding room for clients that do not look too stable.. If the condition is bad the District Office is informed, who then evacuate the patient to Kalindawalo Isolation center.
The stable clients are given treatment and then sent home to self isolate. The positive thing is that the number of days for isolation was reduced from 14 days to only 5 days. After 5 days one is required to come back for a re-test, if positive again another 5 days of quarantaine is obligatory. I feel the decision was brought to reduce the shortages.
Students from the nursing school are back, so they are actually assisting a lot at the wards.

The schools date of opening was delayed by 2 weeks from 18th January to 1st February. This was after the president directed that all schools must put covid preventive measures in place, and yesterday on ZNBC news the media went to schools to check if all was in place. From my observation and what was being reported it seems most schools had prepared well.”

Chaze Sibamba, Social Welfare Officer at SFH, reports on 22 January 2021:
“The last number of cases announced in the clinical meeting was over 80; doctors, nurses, and other workers at the hospital had tested positive.
Thankfully enough a good number recovered, tested negative and they have been reporting back for work.
At St Francis unfortunately we don’t have a covid isolation ward, critical cases are still being reffered to Petauke to Kalindawalo Hospital.

So far 5 patients from Katete were taken to Petauke. Among them is a member of staff at SFH, his condition was not too good and they had to refer him in an ambulance.
The second wave here in Zambia has taken away so many lives it’s really sad and scary, we only hope the vaccine will help, although there has been a lot of misconception over the vaccine. Some fear it’s not safe that it comes with a lot of bad effects..
And a lot of sensitisation will need to be done by the government to help people understand.

It’s also sad that up to now here in Katete people are still not masking up, especially in the markets. However, in the shops a lot of effort has been made to advise people to mask up.”

So far this not too good news from Chaze Sibamba in her report to MSG.

Zambia is among the six safest places to travel during Covid-19 Pandemic
An international travel organization has named Zambia among six safest travel destinations in world, and the only one in Africa so far to receive the recognition.

Zambia is the fourth safest tourism destination ahead of Uruguay and Saudi Arabia while Australia, New Zealand and Singapore are the top three respectively, according to an article published on the Wego Travel Blog website, entitled “Safe Places to Travel During Covid-19 Pandemic.”
The ranking is based on the standards of the European Union countries to coordinate travel restrictions, according to information shared by Huzaifa Jada, a representative of the Zambian mission in Riyadh. Of the 70 countries with sufficient data and testing, only six were ranked as “Safe” for travel.
The classification was based on epidemiological criteria, regarding the ability of countries to contain the pandemic, achieve stability over a long period of time, and the efficiency of the health system, particularly, the clinical capacity for intensive care rooms and efficiency medical staff.
Australia topped the results of the tests in terms of positive coronavirus swabs conducted on 1.693 per million people, with 0.0% of 0.5 new cases per million people.
New Zealand ranked second with 1,365 tests per million inhabitants, with 1% of 0.8 million new cases per million inhabitants. Singapore came third with 4,491 tests per million people, 0.0%, out of 1.3 new cases per million people.
Zambia ranked fourth with 264 examinations per million people, with 0.7% of new cases per million people. Cuba followed in fifth place with 774 examinations per million inhabitants, with 0.4% of 3.5 new cases per million inhabitants.
Saudi Arabia has conducted more than 1.5 million laboratory tests for coronavirus, of which 0.6% are positive samples out of 8.8 new cases per million people.
The Wego data had last been updated on November 27 at the time this article was published.