By ALICE NACHILEMBE
The Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit (DMMU) under the Office of the Vice President has distributed Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) to all media houses in Lusaka to protect them from COVID-19 as they discharge their duty of keeping the country informed.
The Unit has so far distributed two hundred and fifty thousand (250,000) face masks and one hundred and thirty (130X5 litres) containers of sanitizers to forty five (45) public and private media Institutions in Lusaka.
DMMU National Coordinator Chanda Kabwe said Government appreciates the work of the media and considers them as frontline workers who need to be protected from the deadly pandemic.
Mr Kabwe noted that the media personnel are exposed to the pandemic everyday as they carry out their day to day duties of ensuring that the nation is kept abreast with current affairs.
He has described the media as key stakeholders in the fight against COVID-19 and other epidemics stating that the media need to be protected in the same way other frontline workers are protected.
Mr Kabwe said the Covid-19 multi-sectoral team has also prepositioned PPEs in all the provincial centres across the country which can be accessed by the media houses in the regions.
He has called on the scribes to drop the political guns on social media and shift their focus to sensitizing the communities on COVID-19 through the same social media. This is to ensure the already soaring numbers of infection are halted.
He has also urged the media to revise their COVID-19 messages and enhance community engagement in order to bring down the escalating cases of COVID-19 the country is currently recording.
