Mozambique: COVID-19 indicators continue to worsen – AIM report

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Mozambique: COVID-19 indicators continue to worsen – AIM report

7:46 CAT | 30 Jun 2021

File photo: Lusa

According to the latest figures from the Ministry of Health, the number of Covid-19 cases diagnosed in Mozambique is continuing to rise, as are hospitalisations, and the number of active cases.

According to a Tuesday press release from the Ministry, since the start of the pandemic, 595,730 people have been tested for the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, 1,735 of them in the previous 24 hours.

The majority of these were from the known Covid-19 hotspots of Maputo and Tete – 590 from Maputo city, 59 from Maputo province and 349 from Tete. Between them these three provinces accounted for 57.5 per cent of Tuesday’s tests. There were also 482 tests in Cabo Delgado, 87 in Sofala, 70 in Nampula, 37 in Manica, 22 in Niassa, 21 in Inhambane, and 18 in Zambezia. No tests were reported from Gaza.

1,329 of these tests yielded negative results, and 406 people tested positive for the coronavirus. This brings the number of Covid-19 cases diagnosed in Mozambique to 75,828.

Of the new cases diagnosed on Tuesday, 378 are Mozambican citizens, two are known to be foreigners (but, as usual, the Ministry release did not give their nationalities), while the nationalities of the remaining 26 have yet to be confirmed. 216 were men or boys, and 190 were women or girls. 37 were children under the age of 15, and 13 were over 65 years old. In seven cases, no age information was available.

The great majority of the positive cases were from Maputo city (196) and Tete (129). These two provinces accounted for slightly more than 80 per cent of the new cases.

In Cabo Delgado, although the number of tests (482) was second only to Maputo city, only eight positive cases were found. This could be testimony to the success of the drive to suppress the virus during last year’s outbreaks in Afungi and Pemba.

There were also 39 positive cases in Sofala, 12 in Manica, and two each in Nampula, Niassa and Zambezia. None of those tested in Inhambane were positive.

The national positivity rate (the proportion of those tested who are infected by the virus) was 23.4 per cent. The rate over the past few days was 14 per cent on Monday, 24.4 per cent over the weekend, 17.4 per cent on Friday, and 22.7 per cent on Thursday.

This national average, however, conceals a wide gulf in the positivity rates between the Covid-19 hotspots, and the north of the country, where there are relatively few cases. The Tuesday positivity rate in Tete was an alarming 37 per cent, but even this was surpassed by Sofala, where the rate was 44.8 per cent. The rate in Maputo city was 33.2 per cent, in Maputo province 27.1 per cent, and in Manica 32.4 per cent.

But in the north, the picture was very different, with rates of 11.1 per cent in Zambezia, nine per cent in Niassa, 2.8 per cent in Nampula, and only 1.6 per cent in Cabo Delgado.

The Ministry release said that, in the same 24 hour period, 29 Covid-19 patients were discharged from hospital (23 in Maputo, two in Tete, two in Sofala, one in Nampula and one in Manica). But 50 new cases were admitted (36 in Maputo, six in Tete, four in Sofala, three in Matola, and one in Manica).

The number of people under medical care in the Covid-19 treatment centres rose from 159 on Monday to 176 on Tuesday. The great majority of these patients – 120 (68.2 per cent) – were in Maputo, 21 were in Tete, 14 in Matola, 13 in Sofala, two in Nampula, two in Zambezia, one in Niassa and one in Inhambane. There were no patients in the Covid-19 wards in Cabo Delgado or Gaza.

Three more Covid-19 deaths were reported on Tuesday – two Mozambican women and a foreign man (whose nationality was not revealed). Their ages ranged between 30 and 70. Two died in Maputo and one in Matola. This brings the total Covid-19 death toll in Mozambique to 872.

The Ministry also reported that on Tuesday 36 people were declared fully recovered from Covid-19 (23 in Niassa, seven in Maputo province and six in Inhambane). The total number of recoveries now stands at 71,136, which is 93.9 per cent of all those ever diagnosed with Covid-19 in Mozambique.

With the number of new cases greatly outstripping the number of recoveries, the number of active Covid-19 cases inevitably rises – from 3,399 on Monday to 3,766 on Tuesday. The distribution of these cases was as follows: Maputo city, 1,712 (45.5 per cent); Tete, 718; Maputo province, 703; Sofala, 208; Inhambane, 135; Manica, 81; Niassa, 77; Gaza, 52; Cabo Delgado, 31; Nampula, 29; and Zambezia, 20.

Source: AIM