Mozambique: Beira and Inhambane Covid-19 cases investigated – AIM report

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Mozambique: Beira and Inhambane Covid-19 cases investigated – AIM report

4:25 CAT | 13 May 2020

Photo: O País

Mozambican Health Minister Armindo Tiago visited the central city of Beira on Wednesday, to investigate the first four cases of the respiratory disease Covid-19 diagnosed in Sofala province.

The cases have alarmed the health authorities, because they do not form a single cluster, and do not seem to have any relationship with each other. Three of them (two children and an adult) live in Beira, but in different neighbourhoods, while the fourth positive case lives in the Mutua resettlement centre in the district of Dondo.

There is no history of any contact between the four cases. None of them have any record of recent travel inside or outside the country. The parents of the two children have no symptoms of the disease.

On his arrival in Beira, Tiago told reporters that the health authorities have immediately begun to trace the contacts of the four cases, and are working to stop any potential spread of Covid-19 within Sofala communities.

The Secretary of State for Sofala, Stella Pinto, urged calm, and told reporters “we were already prepared, because we are not isolated on an island”. The people of Sofala, she said, should not panic, but should step up preventive measures such as social distancing.

What must be done, she stressed, is break chains of transmission, in order to avoid any exponential spread of the disease. She added that all four positive cases are in home isolation, and work is under way to ensure that they cannot infect anybody else.

Pinto also announced plans for mass testing of long distance truck drivers (Mozambican and foreign) who take cargoes to and from the port of Beira. She said drivers will first be screened, and if they show symptoms, such as a fever, that might indicate Covid-19, they will be quarantined and prevented from driving any further.

The first case of coronavirus in the southern province of Inhambane was also announced on Monday, and the provincial health authorities are working to identify this man’s contacts. The provincial director of health, Naftal Matusse, told reporters that initial tracing had discovered 18 contacts (relatives and friends).

The man had recently been in Maputo, and Matusse believed he had probably picked up the infection in the capital. “Five days ago, he went to the Inhambane provincial hospital because he was feeling unwell, with muscular pains, coughing and fever. Analyses for Covid-19 were requested and on Monday we received the information that he was Covid-19 positive”.

Source: AIM