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Government finalises Review of COVID-19 Guidelines
The ministry of Health, in collaboration with partners working on COVID-19 Response has finalised review of guidelines on various pillars in the wake of new developments and challenges in fighting the pandemic. This was revealed at the end of the COVID-19 Guidelines’ review in Mponela on Thursday, 30 July.
The three-day review workshop focused on Surveillance, Case Management, Infection Prevention and Control (IPC), Risk Communication, Laboratory and Point of Entry (POE) response. The Ministry, through the Public Health Institute of Malawi (...

Cholera cases continue to rise. Two hundred and sixty five (265) cumulative cases have been reported as of 15 January 2018 across the country with the highest number coming from Karonga at 196 cases.
Other districts affected include Kasungu-1, Dowa-4, Nkhatabay-18, Lilongwe- 37, and Salima-9. However, new cases for the past five days have only been recorded in Karonga and Lilongwe.

The Public Health Institute of Malawi (PHIM) welcomes on board two members of staff from Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) on secondment.
Mwakamwereti Kanjo joins as the Communications Officer and is responsible for the visibility and awareness of PHIM and its programmes while Grace Funsani joins as the Surveillance Officer to strengthen and support surveillance and response at the institution.

As part of its core duties, the National Micro-Reference Laboratory does a routine check on antibacterial resitance of various pathogens. In the first half of this year, the lab has reported that 9 pathogens are showing very high resistance to commonly used antibiotics.

On 18 June 2017, Malawians woke up to the rude awakening that residents of some parts of Area 18 in Lilongwe, were drinking contaminated water. It is said that an underground supply line burst near a sewer broken system that was emitting sewer water into the supply line.

Antimicrobial resistance was in February this year recognized as a public health risk that needs to be given priority. This was discussed and agreed upon during a key stakeholders meeting that took place at Bingu International Conference Centre (BICC) in Lilongwe.

Construction of Isolation wards was resumed after the project had stalled due to the absence of Environmental and Social Management plans- a requirement by the World Bank. The project was launched as an emergency response to the outbreak of the Ebola Virus that hit West Africa in 2014. Malawi was at the time identified as one of the countries at risk of getting the virus.

The PHIM Strategic Plan which was developed in 2012 will expire in December 2017. Following which, the Ministry of Health (MoH) with support from I-TECH, International Association of National Public Health Institutes (IANPHI) and other stakeholders has initiated the process of reviewing the strategic plan in order to make necessary updates that will reflect changes that occurred in the health and related sectors in the last 5 years.

Over the months, suspected cases of cholera were reported in Chikwawa. Numerous stool samples were sent to the National Reference Laboratory and the very first case was confirmed in January this year.

The Frontline Field Epidemiology Training Programme (FETP- Frontline) graduated its third cohort of trainees in March this year. Seven trainees working in disease surveillance – both human and animal health enrolled for the programme.