Mozambique: Health Ministry advises against wearing gloves – AIM report

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Mozambique: Health Ministry advises against wearing gloves – AIM report

7:07 CAT | 15 Apr 2020

Rosa Marlene at the Monday, April 13 2020 Covid-19 briefing. [Photo: INS]

Mozambique’s National Director of Public Health, Rosa Marlene, on Monday advised the public against wearing gloves, pointing out that, far from protecting against the Covid-19 respiratory disease, they can help spread the coronavirus that causes the disease.

Speaking at a Maputo press conference on Monday, Marlene said that gloves can act as a means of transmission, because people wearing them touch surfaces which could be contaminated and then touch their mouth or eyes. Thus the virus can hitch a lift on the gloves from one surface to the next, and eventually to the face of the person wearing them.

Gloves could give “a false sense of security”, when the opposite was the case. The claim that gloves are needed when handling money was untrue. The best protection for people, such as bank workers, who handle money which may be contaminated, is to wash their hands frequently.

“The more often you wash your hands during the day, the safer you will be”, Marlene stressed. Gloves, she added, should only be worn for specific medical procedures.

Face masks, on the other hand, have proved useful, she said. An infected person wearing a mask is less likely to transmit the disease than one without a mask. But wearing masks should always be combined with frequent hand washing.

Masks did not need to be sophisticated. Marlene said they can be made at home out of scraps of cotton cloth.

Marlene said that by Monday 683 people had been tested for Covid-19 in Mozambique. There were only four tests in the previous 24 hours, all of which proved negative. Thus the statistics for Covid-19 in Mozambique on Monday remained 21 positive cases (two of whom have made a full recovery), and no deaths.

The low number of tests carried out on Sunday is also true of previous weekends, and, according to the deputy director of the National Health Institute (INS), Eduardo Samo Gudo, this reflects the fact that people tend not to visit health units on a Sunday.

None of the cases tested on Sunday were related to the cluster of positive cases detected among workers for the oil and gas company Total, in the northern province of Cabo Delgado. Samo Gudo expected a team to return from Cabo Delgado with more samples later on Monday. They should be analysed on Tuesday morning.

The INS figures on Monday showed that, since the crisis began, 450,946 people (both Mozambicans and foreigners) had entered the country, and all had been screened. 1,910 travellers remained in quarantine

Source: AIM