Covid-19: Six more deaths, and 951 new cases reported on Wednesday – AIM report

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Covid-19: Six more deaths, and 951 new cases reported on Wednesday – AIM report

7:36 CAT | 11 Feb 2021

Beira. [Photo: O País / STV]

For the first time, the largest number of positive cases – 269 – came, not from Maputo, but from the central province of Sofala.

The Mozambican health authorities on Wednesday reported a further six deaths from the Covid-19 respiratory disease, and another 951 cases.

According to a Health Ministry press release, the latest victims were five men and one woman, all Mozambican citizens, and aged between 38 and 83. Five of them died in Maputo city and one in Maputo province. Five of the deaths were declared on Tuesday and one on Wednesday.

This brings the Covid-19 death toll in Mozambique to 486. 377 of the deaths (77.6 per cent) have occurred in Maputo city.In the first ten days of February there were 94 deaths, over 19 per cent of the total.

The first Covid-19 death was recorded on 25 May last year. Between then and 31 December, 166 people died of the disease. But in just 41 days of this year there have been 320 deaths.

Since the start of the pandemic, 370,782 people have been tested for the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, 2,788 of them in the previous 24 hours. All the Wednesday tests were carried out in public facilities, and none in private laboratories. Of the samples tested, 813 were from Sofala, 693 from Maputo city, 297 from Manica, 280 from Maputo province, 250 from Niassa, 200 from Nampula, 158 from Gaza, 94 from Cabo Delgado, and three from Zambezia. No tests were reported from Tete or Inhambane.

1,897 of the tests gave negative results, and 951 people tested positive for the coronavirus. 926 of these are known to be Mozambican citizens, 23 are foreigners (but the Ministry did not reveal their nationalities), and the nationality of the other two has yet to be ascertained.

497 are men or boys and 454 are women or girls. 78 are children under the age of 15, and 42 are over 65 years old. For 34 cases, no age information was available.

For the first time, the largest number of positive cases – 269 – came, not from Maputo, but from the central province of Sofala. Television footage from Beira showed part of the explanation: in total violation of the norms for preventing the spread of Covid-19, large crowds had gathered at public and private services – notably at the commercial banks.

Despite the clear instructions from the government and from the Bank of Mozambique, there was no attempt to respect social distancing in the queues. Clients told reporters at one bank that, although there is space for several cashiers, only one was on duty.

Watch the STV report below.

There were also 251 cases from Maputo city and 158 from Maputo province (between them accounting for 43 per cent of the total), as well as 69 from Manica, 59 from Cabo Delgado, 54 from Gaza, 53 from Manica, 37 from Nampula and one from Zambezia.

The Wednesday positivity rate (the proportion of those tested found to be carrying the virus) was 34.1 per cent, within the range of between 17 and 40 per cent found over the previous seven days.

Since the first case was identified, on 22 March last year, 46,736 people in Mozambique have been diagnosed with Covid-19.

The Ministry release also said that, in the same 24 hour period, 26 Covid-19 patients were discharged from hospital, all in Maputo, but 32 new cases were admitted (30 in Maputo and two inn Zambezia). As of Wednesday, there were 311 people under medical care in the Covid-19 wards. The great majority of these, 252 (81 per cent) were in Maputo. There were also 14 patients in Sofala, 12 in Zambezia, 11 in Matola, nine in Inhambane, five in Tete, three in Cabo Delgado, two in Niassa and two in Gaza. Nampula remains the only province where no Covid-19 patients are hospitalised.

The Ministry also reported that a further 581 people had made a full recovery from Covid-19 (446 in Gaza, 120 in Inhambane and 15 in Zambezia). The total number of recoveries now stands at 28,395, which is 60.8 per cent of all those diagnosed in Mozambique with the coronavirus.

The number of active Covid-19 cases continues to climb, and now stands at 17,851 (up from 17,487 on Tuesday). They are distributed as follows: Maputo city, 9,741 (54.6 per cent of the total); Maputo province, 2,619; Sofala, 1,771; Gaza, 928; Cabo Delgado, 626; Niassa, 584; Inhambane, 468; Nampula, 366; Manica, 346; Tete, 266; and Zambezia, 136.

Source: AIM