Director of Health and Social Services in the district, Dr. Henry Chibowa Jnr, disclosed this Saturday in his communication to the District Executive Committee (DEC) members.

“All the specimen won't be referred to other laboratories for testing,” said Chibowa in the statement.

Dr. Chibowa also disclosed that the number of Covid-19 cases in the district has increased as in the past 48 hours Mangochi has registered 4 new cases of Covid-19 of which 2 are residents of Nalikolo and Malombe and the other 2 are from T/A Chimwala and both are the returnees from South Africa.

“Therefore, cumulatively, Mangochi has that far recorded 22 cases of

Covid-19 of which 16 are imported infections,” explained Chibowa who said some are cases that are consistently testing positive after 14 days of diagnosis.

However, Dr. Chibowa said the situation is not all that bad because if imported cases are left aside, local transmission remains controlled in Mangochi and he asked people to keep up the efforts to control the spread of the virus.

Mangochi district is one of the districts in the country that export more labour to South Africa and it’s likely to have more returnees from the rainbow natation due to lockdown in the country.