Mozambique: August deadlier than July, despite fewer Covid-19 cases

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Mozambique: August deadlier than July, despite fewer Covid-19 cases

3:40 CAT | 17 Aug 2021

Screen grab: TVM

More people died in Mozambique of the Covid-19 respiratory disease in the first 16 days of August than in the same period of July, according to the Deputy National Director of Public Health, Benigna Matsinhe, although there were fewer cases and hospitalisations in August than in July.

Speaking at a Maputo press conference on Monday, Matsinhe said that so far there have been 17,020 new cases diagnosed in August, a reduction of 15.1 per cent on the 20,042 cases reported in the first 16 days of July. The number of hospitalisations fell by 20.2 per cent, from 918 to 733.

But the number of deaths rose from 197 (an average of 12.3 a day) to 308 (19.3 a day), an increase of 56.3 per cent. Despite this, Matsinhe believed that the measures taken by the government against Covid-19 are having a “positive impact”, and she expected August to end with better indicators than July. The figures for all 31 days of July were 45,624 new cases, 1,953 hospitalisations and 556 deaths.

A further positive note, she added, was that the target groups for the current phase of the national vaccination campaign were reacting positively. The campaign, Matsinhe said, “is of extreme importance in the efforts the government is making to contain the spread of the disease, so that the country can return to normality as quickly as possible”.

The vaccine increases immunity, making those vaccinated less likely to contract serious forms of the disease, or to die, but they must still obey the general rules of Covid-19 prevention, she warned.

Matsinhe said that, in the previous 24 hours, 39,275 people had been vaccinated against Covid-19. The number of people fully vaccinated is now 577,248, and 1,533,797 have received at least one dose of the vaccine.

She reported that, in the same 24 hour period, 15 people had died from Covid-19. Nine of the latest victims were men and six were women. All were Mozambican nationals, aged between 22 and 87. Ten of them died in Maputo, two in Zambezia and one each in Matola, Niassa and Nampula. The total number of Covid-19 deaths is now 1.731.

Since the start of the pandemic, 806,657 people have been tested for the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, 1,499 of them in the previous 24 hours. 1,210 of these tests gave negative results, and 289 people tested positive for the coronavirus. The total number of Covid-19 cases diagnosed in Mozambique now stands at 139,038.

Of the new cases identified on Monday, 157 were women or girls, and 132 were men or boys. 30 were children under the age of 15 and 12 were over 65 years old.

41.5 per cent of the new cases were from the far south – 96 from Maputo city and 24 from Maputo province. There were also 60 cases from Manica, 27 from Inhambane, 24 from Gaza, 22 from Nampula, 19 from Zambezia, 10 from Cabo Delgado, four from Niassa, two from Sofala, and one from Tete.

The national positivity rate (the proportion of those tested found to be infected by the virus) was 19.3 per cent. This is not significantly different from the rates reported over the past few days – 22.7 per cent on Saturday, 18.8 per cent on Sunday, 19.3 per cent on Friday, 21.9 per cent on Thursday, and 21.2 per cent on Wednesday.

Excluding Niassa, where only six tests were held, four of which were positive, the provinces with the highest positivity rates on Monday were Maputo province (29.6 per cent), Gaza (27.3 per cent), Inhambane 24.3 per cent, and Nampula (23.2 per cent). The lowest rate reported was in Tete (two per cent).

Also on Monday, 34 Covid-19 patients were discharged from hospital (25 in Maputo, three in Niassa, three in Sofala, two in Manica, and one in Matola), and 28 new cases were admitted (15 in Maputo, four in Matola and three each in Niassa, Nampula and Zambezia).

The number of people under medical care in the Covid-19 treatment centres fell from 293 on Sunday to 272 on Monday. 184 of these patients (67.6 per cent) were in Maputo, 24 in Matola, 15 in Zambezia, 13 in Nampula, 11 in Niassa, eight in Inhambane, six in Gaza, four in Tete, three in Cabo Delgado, three in Sofala and one in Manica.

Matsinhe said 154 of these patients are men and 118 are women. 98 (36 per cent) are aged 60 and above, while 85 (31.3 per cent) are in the 45-59 year age bracket.

She added that the clinical condition of 93 is “moderate”, while 158 are seriously ill and 21 are in critical condition. Those 21 are in intensive care, while 248 patients are receiving supplementary oxygen.

Matsinhe also reported that 1,109 people have made a full recovery from Covid-19 (512 in Gaza, 429 in Sofala, 78 in Zambezia, 49 in Tete and 41 in Cabo Delgado). The total number of recoveries now stands at 119,559, or 86 per cent of all those ever diagnosed with Covid-19 in Mozambique.

With the number of recoveries greatly exceeding the number of new cases on Monday, the number of active Covid-19 cases has fallen sharply – from 18,579 on Sunday to 17,744 on Monday. The geographical distribution of these cases was Maputo city, 6,686 (37.7 per cent of the total); Maputo province, 5,627; Inhambane, 1,330; Zambezia, 853; Nampula, 810; Niassa, 783; Niassa, 610; Gaza, 536; Sofala, 262; Cabo Delgado, 140; and Tete, 107.

Source: AIM