UN team in Zambia helps response to increase in COVID-19 infections

UNITED NATIONS, June 30 (Xinhua) -- Following an upsurge in COVID-19 cases in Zambia, the UN team is providing technical and material support to aid the government response, a UN spokesman said on Friday.

The UN Children's Fund is helping rehabilitate and service medical oxygen plants at three main provincial hospitals, said Farhan Haq, the deputy spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

The fund also reactivated the distribution of personal protective equipment, including about 400,000 masks, 1 million gowns, 855,000 gloves, 78,000 goggles, and 42,000 face shields, Haq said.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is restocking laboratories with test kits and monitoring COVID-19 variants, he said.

The UN team led by the resident coordinator, Beatrice Mutali, reported that in the last few weeks, Zambia had a positivity rate of 7 percent for COVID-19.

The WHO said there was a general decline in the COVID-19 rate over the previous four weeks globally, including in the rest of Africa, where the number of cases was down 12 percent over the last 28 days. Notably, there was an increase in the number of deaths from the disease reported in Africa.

However, the WHO said comparing reported cases in different regions is not an accurate representation of infection rates due to reductions in testing and reporting globally.