Mozambique | Covid-19: Almost 1,000 new cases in 24 hours reported on Wednesday – AIM

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Mozambique | Covid-19: Almost 1,000 new cases in 24 hours reported on Wednesday – AIM

8:34 CAT | 17 Dec 2021

File photo: MISAU

The Mozambican health authorities reported 975 new cases of the Covid-19 respiratory disease on Wednesday, the highest daily total since 17 August (when 1,033 cases were diagnosed).

There has been a fairly steady increase in daily cases throughout this month – from 46 on 1 December, to 111 on 4 December, to 260 on 9 December, 379 on 10 December, 443 on 11 December, down to 266 on 12 December, and 113 on 13 December, than climbing back up to 733 on Tuesday and now 975,

According to a Wednesday press release from the Ministry of Health, since the start of the pandemic, 1,011,566 people have been tested for the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, 4,053 of them in the previous 24 hours.

3,078 of the tests gave negative results, but 975 people were carrying the virus. This brings the number of people diagnosed with Covid-19 in Mozambique to 155,495. Of the new cases reported on Wednesday, 542 were women and 432 were men. In one case, the sex was not reported. 37 were children under 15 years of age.

The great majority of the new cases – 74.2 per cent – were from the far south (392 from Maputo city and 331 from Maputo province). There were also 113 cases from Gaza, 81 from Inhambane, 41 from Manica, seven from Sofala, three from Cabo Delgado, three from Zambezia, two from Nampula and two from Tete. No positive cases were reported from Niassa.

If this is indeed, as the health authorities fear, the start of a fourth wave of Covid-19, it is so far largely restricted to the area south of the Save river. It is not yet clear how many of the new cases were caused by the omicron variant of the coronavirus.

As the number of new cases rises, so does the positivity rate (the percentage of those tested found to be carrying the virus). The Wednesday positivity rate was 24.06 per cent – meaning that almost one in four of those tested was positive. This is a substantial increase on the rates earlier in the week – 19.15 per cent on Tuesday, 14.12 per cent on Monday, 14.79 per cent on Sunday and 13.55 per cent on Saturday.

In the worst hit areas, the positivity rate is much higher – 32.77 per cent in Maputo province and 29.88 per cent in Maputo city. But in the north, the positivity rate is fairly small – 3.4 per cent in Cabo Delgado, and 2.5 per cent in Nampula, for example.

In the same 24 hour period, nine Covid-19 patients were discharged from hospital (five in Maputo, two in Matola, and one each in Inhambane, Gaza and Manica), while 11 new cases were admitted (six in Maputo, two in Matola, and one each in Inhambane, Gaza and Manica).

The number of people under medical care in the Covid-19 treatment centres rose from 29 on Tuesday to 31 on Wednesday – 24 in Maputo, three in Matola, two in Inhambane, one in Manica and one in Gaza. In northern Mozambique, no Covid-19 patients are hospitalised.

The Ministry release reported one further death from Covid-19. The victim was a 19 year old woman who died in Maputo. This brings the total Covid-19 death toll in Mozambique to 1,946.

26 people were declared to have made a full recovery from Covid-19 – 20 in Inhambane, four in Zambezia and two in Tete. The total number of recoveries now stands at 150,015, which is 96.5 per cent of all those ever diagnosed with Covid-19 in Mozambique.

The number of active Covid-19 cases rose from 2,582 on Tuesday to 3,530 on Wednesday – an increase of 37 per cent in 24 hours. The geographical distribution of the active cases was as follows: Maputo city, 1,711 (48.5 per cent of the total); Maputo province, 1,158; Gaza, 250; Inhambane, 233; Manica, 103; Cabo Delgado, 25; Sofala, 21; Zambezia, nine; Niassa, eight; Nampula, seven; and Tete, five.

The Ministry also reported that, over the previous 24 hours, a further 119,543 people were vaccinated against Covid-19. The number of people fully vaccinated against the disease is now 4,903,643 and 7,352.996 have received at least one dose of the vaccine.

Source: AIM