Mozambique: Maputo Council to open morgue for Covid-19 victims in Michafutene cemetery – Lusa

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Mozambique: Maputo Council to open morgue for Covid-19 victims in Michafutene cemetery – Lusa

11:17 CAT | 05 Feb 2021

Michafutene cemetery, in Marracuene. [File photo: Miramar]

The City Council of Maputo announced on Thursday the opening of a morgue only for victims of the pandemic and aims to “decongest” the other morgues in the capital in the face of pressure caused by the new coronavirus.

The new morgue can hold 60 bodies “will work strictly with covid-19 deaths,” said the municipal director of Morgue and Cemetery Management, Hélder Muando, cited yesterday by Radio Mozambique.

According to the source, the space is due to open on the 10th, attached to Michafutene cemetery, located in Marracuene, Maputo province. It aims to reduce the risk of contamination caused by lack of capacity in existing services.

Muando also said that rehabilitation work was underway in Maputo Central Hospital (HCM) morgue, the largest in Mozambique, estimated at 14 million meticais (€156,000).

According to the authorities, the HCM morgue receives nine Covid-19 victims per day, which poses challenges.

“We have to agree that this demand leads to human resource constraints, for example. We have this big problem,” he concluded.

The Public Integrity Centre (CIP), a Mozambican non-governmental organisation, on Monday, classified some morgues in the Maputo region as places of increased risk for the spread of Covid-19 due to the lack of conditions to deal with the bodies of victims of the disease.

In a study on “Morgues represent a risk of infection by the new coronavirus”, the CIP noted that the situation in the morgues analysed is of non-compliance with the directives issued by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in the treatment of the bodies of Covid-19 victims, namely, specific training of human resources, provision of personal protection equipment and intensification of cleaning and ventilation.

Watch below a report by TV Miramar on the Michafutene cemetery [17 July 2020]. This cemetery, despite being located in Marracuene, is under the management of the Maputo City Council.