Covid-19: Possible outbreak in Mozambique will put pressure on health system – WHo

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Covid-19: Possible outbreak in Mozambique will put pressure on health system – WHo

2:17 CAT | 18 Mar 2020

File photo: Lusa

The Mozambique representative of the World Health Organisation (WHO) warned yesterday that an outbreak of Covid-19 in the country would put pressure on an already weak health system, taking into account that hospitals need to be ready for an influx of isolation cases.

“The country already has many health problems that it has to face every day, and this [Covid-19] is an increase in pressure on a weak and overburdened health system,” Djamila Cabral said in an interview with Lusa in Maputo.

Cabral said the country would need support facing the pandemic, and hospitals needed the means to isolate and treat infected people.

“Isolation is very specific, complex process. We need to start preparing for it now, and authorities are working on it. Hospitals with isolation areas have been identified in all provinces,” Cabral said.

There is still no confirmed case of the disease in Mozambique, but fear has increased after the confirmation since last week of new cases in neighbouring South Africa.

Djamila Cabral adds that the priority remains screening at airports and border posts, as the “danger will come from outside”.

“We are concentrating on action in provincial capitals, because we believe that contaminated person will arrive from outside [the country]. So if have a good triage service at airports and borders, we will have good results, and we will have a list of people who have entered Mozambique and where they went,” she said.

Cabral also warned of the risk of fake news about Covid-19 in a society where access to information is still a challenge, especially in rural areas.

“People are hungry for information. They want to know what’s going on, and any information that seems to have some logic to it they embrace, even without thinking,” Cabral warned.

The new coronavirus responsible for Covid-19 was detected in China in December, and has already caused more than 4,600 deaths worldwide, leading the World Health Organisation to declare the disease a pandemic.

The number of people infected exceeds 125,000, with cases registered in about 120 countries and territories, including Portugal, which has 78 confirmed cases.

China has registered 15 new infections in the last 24 hours, the lowest number since daily counts started in January. As of midnight on Wednesday, the death toll in China, excluding Macau and Hong Kong, rose by 11 to 3,169. In total, the country has 80,793 people infected.

In view of the pandemic’s progress, many countries have adopted exceptional measures, including the quarantine regime initially imposed by China in the outbreak area.

After China, Italy is the country most seriously affected, with more than 12,000 infected and at least 827 dead, leading the government to decree quarantine measures country-wide.

Source: Lusa