TRUCK COVID CRISIS HITS TYRES
THE Covid-19 pandemic has placed Lusaka in a crisis with most basic services impossible or too expensive to access while the council is issuing 600 burial permits per week even as burial places are fast running out as 53 lives are lost in a single day. Funerals have suddenly become costly with prices for related products and services having been exponentially hiked.
Coffins which were costing K500 are now fetching as much as K1, 500 and K3, 500 in Lusaka while costs of funeral parlour services have also been roundly increased.
Over 600 burial permits are being issued per week following the unprecedented number of deaths from the Covid-19 pandemic.
A check at the University Teaching Hospital (UTH) mortuary found family members putting finishing touches to collected bodies outside the facility to make room for others.
Crowds were found at the mortuary as early as 05: 00 hours awaiting to collect the bodies of their beloved for possible burial.
Mortuary attendants are not allowing mourners to go through with their vehicles inside the mortuary premises due to lack of parking space and people are therefore now forced to carry coffins on the shoulders over a stretch of almost 200 metres.
In an interview, a coffin trader, Amos Chalwe said from the time Zambia
started recording third wave deaths, business has suddenly boomed.
Mr Chalwe said the price of timber suddenly went up forcing his company to also increase the price of coffins.
And 85 burial permits are being issued on daily basis as compared to before Zambia entered the third wave Covid-19 when less than 20 burial permits were issued in a day.
Lusaka City Council director of
Public Health, Christopher Mtonga said the local authority has since been overwhelmed following the spike in deaths recorded in the city.
Mr Mtonga said the council is now issuing out 610 burial permits in a week and 85 permits in a day which is a big number.
Mr Mtonga also said the council issues funeral gathering permits to ensure that mourners conduct the funerals in a guided manner.
Mr Mtonga explained that currently LCC has embarked on sensitizing the general public and people attending burials on Covid guidelines that the Ministry of Health has put in place such as to ensure that crowding is controlled at funeral houses, keep social distance as well as hand sanitising.