Mozambique: Cabo Delgado, Nampula & Niassa Humanitarian Snapshot, as of August 2025
Covid-19: Nampula is now the province with ” the highest rate of positivity” in Mozambique
3:51 CAT | 03 Jun 2020
Image: A Verdade / Graphics by Nuno Teixeira
Mozambique’s most populous province, and the site of its first Covid-19 death on Tuesday became the region with “the highest rate of positivity” after the diagnosis of a further 47 patients in a single day, six of them children.
Although the authorities continue to deny it, community transmission of the new coronavirus is increasingly evident, with locally infected people being diagnosed as far afield as Mogovolas district in Nampula province.
Since the first positive cases of the new coronavirus were identified in Nampula province, new patients have been diagnosed in the province every day that suspected cases have been tested. Strangely, on the 1st of June, no samples arrived from the so-called capital of the north, but 120 suspected cases from Nampula were tested on Tuesday, out of 269 tests performed by the National Health Institute.
“Of the new cases, 216 came back negative and 53 positive. Mozambique therefore has a cumulative total of 307 positive cases, 281 of which are locally transmitted and 26 imported,” National Director of Health Dr Rosa Marlene told reporters in Maputo.
Of the 53 new cases, “all are of Mozambican nationality; 17 are asymptomatic and 36 have mild to moderate symptoms,” the doctor detailed.
“From Palma district in Cabo Delgado we have a male person over the age of 15.” she said.
“We also have cases in Maputo city: three females and two males, all over the age of 15 .
“From the province of Nampula, with 47 cases, we have 14 females in Nampula (city), four under 15 years old and 10 over 15 years old. We also have 24 males, two under 15 years of age and 22 over the age of 15.”
“In the same province, in the Mogovolas district, we have four males and five females, all over 15 years old.”
Dr. Rosa Marlene wrongly stated that “the Nampula cases are from two places of work, cases that we notified two or three weeks ago, at different times, and all are contacts of diagnosed-positive people, so they are confined cases, both those in Mogovolas and in the city of Nampula – they are in a confined place”. In fact, none of the new patients are in confinement but are in isolation at home, some in a camp.
Until this Tuesday, no positive case had been announced by the Ministry of Health for the Mogovolas district. @Verdade has learned that the provincial authorities attempted to hide one positive diagnosis because it occurred in one of the construction camps of the foreign companies carrying out a strategic economic project for the province.
“Nampula (province) currently has the highest rate of positivity”
Deputy director-general of the National Institute of Health Dr Eduardo Samo Gudo Jr said that “the 47 Nampula cases reported yesterday are the result of two transmission chains, one in Nampula (city) and one in Mogovolas”.
“In epidemiological profile terms, Nampula currently has the highest rate of positivity – the number of individuals who are positive among the universe of tested cases – which worries us. Another aspect is that Nampula province has high population density,” he said.
Health authorities were pondering expanding active surveillance, he added, since it is currently being conducted in only five places in a province of more than 5.7 million inhabitants.
Although health officials say the spread of the new coronavirus in the Palma district headquarters is not directly related to the cases diagnosed at the Total construction camps in Afungi, @Verdade has learned that at least one worker from a security company providing services at these facilities was diagnosed with Covid-19 in mid-May.
Despite the evident community transmission in the provinces of Nampula, Cabo Delgado and even in the city of Maputo, the Ministry of Health continues to argue that Mozambique “is in transition” only to the most serious stage of the pandemic, which has already caused two deaths, both buried before their serological status had been clearly established.
By Adérito Caldeira
Source: A Verdade
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