COVID-19: Confinement would be “catastrophic” for vulnerable Mozambicans

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COVID-19: Confinement would be “catastrophic” for vulnerable Mozambicans

2:39 CAT | 20 Apr 2020

File photo: Lusa

The implementation of a Covid-19 home confinement ‘lockdown’ like South Africa’s would be catastrophic for a large part of Mozambique’s population, the Director-general of the National Institute of Health Ilesh Jani has said.

“The implementation of Stage 4 measures in a country like Mozambique would be catastrophic for a very vulnerable section of our population,” the Mozambican Information Agency (AIM) quotes Jani as saying.

Jani says that the authorities’ priority is to persuade the population to respect the measures in force since April 1 so as to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus and avoid more restrictive measures.

“We want at all costs to stop community transmission of the virus, and for that we depend on compliance with the measures enacted by the government,” he said.

“We continue to urge people to limit their movements to the essential. That is what Stage 3 measures say, so that we avoid at all costs the implementation of Stage 4 measures,” – that is, lockdown.

The country has been living under a state of emergency throughout April, with schools, entertainment and leisure facilities closed, a prohibition on all types of events and gatherings, and borders closed.

Mozambique has officially registered 39 cases of Covid-19, with no deaths and eight patients fully recovered.

Globally, the Covid-19 pandemic has caused more than 164,000 deaths and infected more than 2.3 million people in 193 countries and territories. More than 525,000 patients are considered to have fully recovered.

Source: Lusa