The Malawi Health Equity Network (MHEN) has suggested that frontline health care workers must be in their full personal protective equipment gear when attending to all patients as one way of protecting themselves from covid-19 pandemic. 

MHEN’s Executive Director, George Jobe told YFM in interview following the rising numbers of healthcare workers who have tested positive for covid-19.

Jobe said apart from disinfecting their offices, health care practitioners should at all times be in their full protective gear whenever they want to attend to  every patients disregarding whether they have tested positive for covid-19 or not.

“Health care workers must be in a full protective gear whenever they are attending to every patient at the hospital, because they might not know the person they are treating is a carrier of the virus,” he said.

“We should also encourage the workers to be on the forefront of observing all the preventive measures even in their offices, because they are the ones at a higher risk of contracting the virus, they attend to the sick, they associate with their community members and interact with their friends in the offices,” explained Jobe.

Currently as of July 21, 2020, 232 healthcare workers had tested positive for corona virus.