Mozambique: For first time number of new Covid-19 cases in a day exceeds 2,000 – AIM

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Mozambique: For first time number of new Covid-19 cases in a day exceeds 2,000 – AIM

7:58 CAT | 19 Jul 2021

File photo: O País

According to the Mozambican health authorities, on Saturday, for the first time ever, the number of new cases of the Covid-19 respiratory disease diagnosed in a single 24 hour period exceeded 2,000.

New records were also set for the number of Covid-19 deaths, the number of hospitalisations and the number of active cases.

According to a Saturday press release from the Ministry of Health, 24 people died from Covid-19 in the previous 24 hours. 16 of these victims were men and eight were women, all Mozambican citizens and aged between 31 and 86. 19 of these deaths took place in Maputo city, two in Sofala, and one each in Manica, Inhambane and Gaza.

This brought the total Covid-19 death toll in Mozambique to 1,099, and the death toll in July to 221. Thus over 20 per cent of all Covid-19 deaths took place in the first 17 days of July.

Since the start of the pandemic, 666,406 people have been tested for the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, 5,870 of them in the previous 24 hours. As has become the norm, the majority of the tests were in the Covid-19 hotspots of Maputo and Tete – 2,533 in Maputo city, 1,287 in Maputo province, and 460 in Tete. These three provinces accounted for 72.9 per cent of all of Saturday’s tests.

There were also 405 tests from Inhambane, 326 from Nampula, 208 from Sofala, 201 from Manica, 181 from Niassa, 133 from Gaza, 100 from Cabo Delgado and 36 from Zambezia.

3,845 of the tests gave negative results, and 2,025 people tested positive for the coronavirus. The previous highest number of positive cases in 24 hours was 1,687 recorded less than a week ago, on 12 July. The total number of Covid-19 cases diagnosed in Mozambique now stands at 98,152.

The largest number of positive cases came from Maputo city (865) and Maputo province (684). Between them, Maputo city and province accounted for 76.5 per cent of the positive cases reported on Saturday. There were also 107 positive cases from Inhambane, 99 from Tete, 99 from Manica, 87 from Niassa, 43 from Sofala, 23 from Gaza, 11 from Nampula, five from Zambezia and two from Cabo Delgado.

The national positivity rate (the proportion of those tested found to be infected with the virus) on Saturday was 35.5 per cent, considerably higher than the 29.7 per cent reported on Friday. The rates over the previous few days were 28.3 per cent on Thursday, 35 per cent on Wednesday, 30.8 per cent on Tuesday and 45.1 per cent on Monday.

The province with the highest positivity rate was Maputo province, with 53.2 per cent, followed by Niassa (48.1 per cent), Manica (49.3 per cent), Maputo city (34.1 per cent), Inhambane (26.4 per cent) and Tete (21.6 per cent).

The lowest positivity rates continue to be found in the north – 3.4 per cent in Nampula and two per cent in Cabo Delgado.

Over the same 24 hour period, 33 Covid-19 patients were discharged from hospital (13 in Maputo, nine in Sofala, five in Matola, four in Manica, one in Tete and one in Gaza). But more than three times that number of new cases, 106, were admitted (63 in Maputo, 18 in Sofala, 11 in Matola, six in Inhambane, four in Manica, two in Gaza, one in Tete and one in Zambezia).

The number of people under medical care in the Covid-19 treatment facilities rose from 451 on Friday to 499 on Saturday – the highest figure so far for Covid-19 hospitalisations. 330 of these patients (66.1 per cent) were in Maputo, 57 in Sofala, 43 in Matola, 24 in Tete, 13 in Manica, 12 in Inhambane, eight in Zambezia, seven in Gaza, three in Nampula, and two in Niassa. Cabo Delgado remains the only province where no Covid-19 patients are hospitalised.

The Ministry release added that on Saturday 1,144 people were declared fully recovered from Covid-19 (685 in Tete, 293 in Maputo province, 100 from Inhambane, 41 from Niassa and 25 from Zambezia). The total number of recoveries now stands at 76,269, which is 77.7 per cent of all those ever diagnosed with Covid-19 in Mozambique.

Although the number of recoveries reported on Saturday may seem large, it was greatly surpassed by the number of new cases, and so the number of active Covid-19 cases has continued to increase sharply, rising from 19,923 on Friday to a new record of 20,780 on Saturday.

The geographical breakdown of these cases was as follows: Maputo city, 11,853 (57 per cent of the total); Maputo province, 3,093; Tete, 2.178; Manica, 873; Gaza, 822; Inhambane, 720; Niassa, 530; Sofala, 384; Nampula, 156; Zambezia, 133; and Cabo Delgado, 38.

Source: AIM