Mozambique: Country faces much tougher second wave – Institute of Health

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Mozambique: Country faces much tougher second wave – Institute of Health

4:54 CAT | 08 Feb 2021

File photo: DW

The deputy director of Mozambique’s National Health Institute (INS), Eduardo Samo Gudo, on Monday said that the country is facing a much tougher second wave of Covid-19, which can only be reversed through tighter restrictions.

“We do not doubt that we are facing a much more severe second wave,” Eduardo Samo Gudo said in an interview with the public broadcaster Radio Mozambique (RM).

He said the fast, persistent and consistent pace of infections fits the classical definition of a second wave of the pandemic.

Mozambique, he continued, has one of the highest positivity rates of the new coronavirus in Africa, at 31.2% in the first week of this month.

“There were 900 cases a day in the first seven days of this month, totalling around 5,500 cases in a single week, and there were 14 deaths a day, adding up to 103 in just one week,” he said.

The failure to take preventive measures during the festive season in December was the trigger that set off the infections. Still, the new variant of Covid-19 exacerbated the situation detected in South Africa.

The new strain detected in South Africa began circulating in Mozambique last November, he added.

“We have a faster transmission,” although the virulence and severity of the new strain remain the same as the first variant, the INS director said.

“Light and moderate measures no longer reverse [the current picture], because transmission chains are very dispersed, only severe restrictive measures can slow down the pace of transmissions,” Eduardo Samo Gudo stressed.

A high infection rate is behind the increase in admissions, deaths and pressure on testing and the consequent delay in reporting results.

Eduardo Samo Gudo pointed out that Maputo is currently the epicentre of Covid-19, but the country already has several outbreaks of community transmission due to the multiplication of transmission chains.

The country has been under new restrictions since last Friday due to the increase in the number of deaths, hospitalisations and several cases in January that exceeded the figures for the whole of 2020, focusing on Maputo.

Mozambique’s president announced last Thursday 20 new measures, including a night curfew, from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m., in the Maputo metropolitan area, which also covers the adjacent districts of Matola, Boane and Marracuene.

The country had reported by Sunday [February 7 2021] 460 deaths and 44,600 cases, of which 61% have recovered.

Source: Lusa