Mozambique: Enough water available for Greater Maputo – AIM report

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Mozambique: Enough water available for Greater Maputo – AIM report

4:19 CAT | 13 Apr 2020

Photo: TVM

Mozambique’s National Director of Water Supply, Nilton Trindade, on Sunday guaranteed that the Greater Maputo Metropolitan Area will have sufficient water to last until the start of the next rainy season (in October).

With the Covid-19 pandemic, a reliable supply of clean water has become more vital than ever, since one of the main preventive measures against the disease is frequent washing of hands with soap and water.

Speaking at a Maputo press conference, Trindade said there is no danger of the main source of water for Maputo, the reservoir behind the Pequenos Libombos dam, running dry any time in the near future.

The level of the reservoir is currently at 30 per cent of its capacity. Although this is low, it is enough to keep Maputo, the neighbouring city of Matola and the town of Boane supplied for several months.

Trindade said that the Public Works Ministry has decided to stop disconnecting clients from the water supply network when they fail to pay their water bills. Fines for delays in paying bills have also been suspended, and clients already disconnected will be reconnected, simply to ensure that an adequate supply of water is available for hygiene purposes.

Trindade made it clear that these are temporary measures, while the coronavirus crisis lasts, and that the water bills will eventually have to be paid.

The National Director of Public Health, Rosa Marlene, told the press conference that a further case of Covid-19 was diagnosed on Saturday, bringing the total number of known cases in Mozambique to 21.

The new case is a contact of one of the nine people previously diagnosed as positive who work for the French oil and gas company, Total, in the northern province of Cabo Delgado. The man is an Australian citizen in his 50s, who was already under home quarantine in Maputo. He has now been put into isolation in a room in a Maputo hotel.

The Australian had developed slight symptoms, notably a fever and a cough, on Saturday. A sample was collected from him and it proved positive for Covid-19.

Marlene announced that the Health Ministry’s statistics on coronavirus testing now include not only the tests undertaken in the laboratory of the National Health Institute (INS), but also those done by private laboratories.

Up until Sunday, 679 suspect cases had been tested, 26 of them in the previous 24 hours. The great bulk of those tested have proved negative for the coronavirus, so that currently there are just 21 positive cases (two of whom have made a full recovery) and no deaths.

According to the INS figures, since the start of the crisis 450,946 people have entered Mozambique and have been screened. 10,214 of these went into quarantine, and 1,963 are still in quarantine.

Source: AIM