Chilufya’s primary contacts tested – Miti

By AARON CHIYANZOALL primary contacts to Health Minister Chitalu Chilufya and Minister of Information and Broadcasting Dora Siliya including some ministers have been tested, Secretary to the Cabinet Simon Miti has said.Dr Miti said the process of testing the primary contacts was also ongoing to ascertain whether they were infected or not.Dr Chilufya becomes the second Cabinet Minister to contract the disease after Ms Siliya tested positive last week.“You have to note that we have identified the primary contacts of Dr Chilufya and Ms Siliya and those primary contacts have been tested and I am glad to report that most of them are in fact negative.It has been an on-going exercise, secondary contacts have also been requested, those are members of Cabinet and Cabinet secretariat including those in the ministries and those who have been part of the coverage, the media they will be contacted and some of them have been contacted already and as results come out for those that are positive but have no symptoms then the new normal will thrive and they will be at self isolation,” Dr Miti said.Dr Miti said Dr Chilufya was stable and would continue championing the fight against Covid-19 through ICT.Dr Miti said during the 61st Covid-19 update from Ndeke House in Lusaka that President Edgar Lungu had wished Dr Chilufya a quick recovery.And Dr Miti said Zambia had recorded 137 new Covid-19 cases from the 4, 264 tests conducted in the last five days while 443 patients were discharged from different isolation centers.He said the cumulative total was now 1, 057 which included 753 recoveries and seven deaths.On the new cases, Dr Miti said 56 were captured through routine screening, 26 were health workers, 33 truck drivers, 16 contacts to known cases, two from Nakonde border and four detected through hospital surveillance at the University Teaching Hospital.