Mozambique: Coronavirus testing at Afungi ends; five new cases reported on Saturday – AIM report

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Mozambique: Coronavirus testing at Afungi ends; five new cases reported on Saturday – AIM report

7:26 CAT | 11 May 2020

Photo: INS

As the mass testing of workers at the camp of the French oil and gas company Total, on the Afungi Peninsula, in the northern Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado, draws to a close, the health authorities have diagnosed a further five cases of the respiratory disease Covid-19.

Speaking in Maputo on Saturday, at the daily press conference on Covid-19, Health Minister Armindo Tiago said that to date 3,749 suspect cases of Covid-19 have been tested, 393 of them in the previous 24 hours. This is the largest number of samples tested in a single day so far.

Of these cases, 388 were negative, and five tested positive for Covid-19, pushing the total number of confirmed cases up to 87.

The new positive cases are a 30 year old Mozambican woman, a 36 year old Kenyan man, a 50 year old South African man, and two British men, aged 40 and 58. All are employed by Total and live in the Afungi camp.

None display any symptoms, and so they have not been hospitalized, but are under home isolation in Afungi. Asked if these five cases indicate ongoing transmission of the coronavirus in the Afungi camp, Tiago said that in all five the viral load was very low, and he thought it likely that they had been infected at much the same time as the other Afungi cases detected over the past few weeks.

Of the samples tested over the previous 24 hours, the Minister said that 113 were from Cabo Delgado, 267 from Maputo province and 13 from Maputo City. Those tested in Maputo province are all Mozambicans returning from South Africa, who had illegally crossed the border at Ponta de Ouro.

The South Africans closed this border post in late March. Nonetheless over 300 Mozambicans used it, and were picked up by the frontier police on the Mozambican side of the border. They were taken to a camp in Moamba district, where they were tested for Covid-19.

Tiago said that the mass testing of everyone working at the Afungi camp is now concluded. A few dozen of the samples taken have yet to be tested, and the Minister hoped this would be done in time for the next press conference, scheduled for Sunday.

He also announced that a further seven coronavirus cases have made a full recovery, pushing the number of recoveries up from 27 to 34. Of the recovered cases, 16 are from Cabo Delgado and 13 are from Maputo city. All five confirmed cases from the southern city of Matola have recovered.

Asked what treatment was given to those who have recovered, Tiago said that the majority were asymptomatic, and so no treatment at all was required. They were declared recovered as soon as testing showed they were no longer infected.

The minority who showed slight symptoms, were treated for those symptoms: thus those who were running a fever were given paracetamol.

As for the country’s requirement for ventilators. Tiago pointed out that only those who are seriously ill from Covid-19 need ventilators to help them breathe. So far Mozambique has no serious cases, and the Health Ministry hopes that, if the current strategy of testing, contact tracing and isolation works, there will be no need for anyone to use a ventilator.

Tiago added that since there is, as yet, no vaccine against Covid-19, and no proven cure for the disease, the crisis can only be overcome through preventive measures, such as frequent hand washing, social distancing, avoiding unnecessary travel, and putting anyone entering the country into quarantine.

The figures given by Tiago mean that, as of Saturday, the key statistics for Covid-19 in Mozambique are: 87 confirmed cases, of whom 34 have made a full recovery and 53 are regarded as active cases, and no deaths.

Source: AIM