Mozambique: Covid-19 positivity rate remains relatively low

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Mozambique: Covid-19 positivity rate remains relatively low

7:02 CAT | 15 Mar 2021

File photo: MISAU

The Mozambican health authorities on Sunday reported a further three deaths from the Covid-19 respiratory disease, and 220 new cases.

According to a Ministry of Health press release, the latest victims were two Mozambican men and one Mozambican woman, one aged 39 and two aged 64. All three deaths occurred in Maputo city. This brings the total death toll from Covid-19 in Mozambique to 725. 567 of these deaths (78.2 per cent) happened in Maputo.

Since the start of the pandemic, 453,685 people have been tested for the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, 1,493 of them in the previous 24 hours. Of the samples tested, 444 were from Maputo city, 222 from Inhambane, 191 from Niassa, 159 from Maputo province, 139 from Tete, 132 from Sofala, 106 from Cabo Delgado, 60 from Zambezia, 38 from Gaza and two from Nampula. No tests were reported from Manica.

1,273 of the tests gave negative results, and 220 people tested positive for the coronavirus. This was a positivity rate (the proportion of those tested found to be carrying the virus) of 14.7 per cent – almost identical to the 14.8 per cent positivity rate reported on Saturday.

For the past week, the positivity rate has never reached as much as 20 per cent. This may be an encouraging sign that the epidemic is slackening in its intensity, but another week or two of data will be needed to confirm this.

The Ministry release said that 208 of those who tested positive on Sunday are Mozambicans, ten are foreigners (but the Ministry did not give their nationalities), and in two cases, nationality has yet to be confirmed. 113 of the new cases are men or boys, and 107 are women or girls. 14 are children under the age of 15, and 12 are over 65 years old. In 11 cases no age information was available.

Over half of Sunday’s cases came from the far south – 105 from Maputo city and 25 from Maputo province. Thus Maputo city and province supplied 59 per cent of these cases, confirming again that the capital and the surrounding area remain the epicentre of the Mozambican epidemic. There were also 23 cases from Sofala, 22 from Niassa, 19 from Inhambane, 14 from Zambezia, eight from Tete, two from Nampula and two from Gaza.

Over the same 24 hour period, nine Covid-19 patients were discharged from hospital (six in Maputo, two in Tete and one in Zambezia), but at the same time nine new cases were admitted (eight in Maputo and one in Zambezia).

As of Sunday, 162 people were under medical care in the Covid-19 wards (a decline from 165 on Saturday). The great majority – 110 (67.9 per cent) – were in Maputo. There were also 15 patients in Matola, 14 in Zambezia, 10 in Nampula, nine in Sofala, two in Inhambane, one in Tete and one in Gaza. There were no patients in the Covid-19 isolation facilities in Cabo Delgado, Niassa or Manica.

The Ministry also reported that a further 566 people had been declared free of Covid-19 on Sunday (520 in Maputo city and 46 in Zambezia). This brings the total number of recoveries to 50,380, or 78 per cent of all those diagnosed in Mozambique with Covid-19.

The number of active Covid-19 cases has now fallen to 13,407 (down from 13,756 on Saturday). The geographical distribution of the active cases was as follows: Maputo city, 9,327 (69.6 per cent of the total); Maputo province, 1,842; Sofala, 514; Cabo Delgado, 394; Zambezia, 320; Niassa, 289; Nampula, 284; Inhambane, 237; Tete, 115; Gaza, 62; and Manica, 23.

Source: AIM