Mozambique: Seriously ill coronavirus patients waiting too long to seek help – AIM report

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Mozambique: Seriously ill coronavirus patients waiting too long to seek help – AIM report

9:24 CAT | 11 Nov 2020

File photo: Notícias

Mozambique’s Deputy National Director of Public Health, Benigna Matsinhe, on Monday lamented that people with severe symptoms of the Covid-19 respiratory disease are waiting too long before seeking hospital treatment.

Speaking at a Maputo press conference, Matsinhe said it was very difficult for health professionals to assist sufferers if they are already critically ill when they arrive. “Most patients who meet the criteria for hospitalization reach the hospitals late”, she stressed.

Matsinhe urged that people in high risk groups – those aged over 65, and people with other chronic illnesses (such as diabetes, cancer, HIV/AIDS or high blood pressure) – “should continue to go to their routine appointments in accordance with the guidance from the health services, but go to the emergency services if their symptoms worsen or new symptoms appear”.

Patients who test positive for Covid-19 and go into home isolation, she added, must follow the signs of how serious their condition is – such as a persistent fever, or shortage of breath.

Matsinhe said that, by Monday, 202,742 people have been tested for the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, 1,796 of them in the previous 24 hours. Of the samples tested, 691 were from Maputo city, 511 from Zambezia, 183 from Nampula, 134 from Maputo province, 91 from Tete, 67 from Sofala, 48 from Inhambane, 12 from Gaza, three from Mania and one from Cabo Delgado.

1,741 of the tests gave negative results, and 55 people tested positive for the coronavirus. This brings the number of positive cases diagnosed in Mozambique since the start of the pandemic to 13,823.

Of the new cases, 54 are Mozambicans and one is a Swazi citizen. 29 are men or boys and 26 are women or girls. Ten are children under the age of 15, and two are over 65 years old.

The great majority of the cases come from Maputo city (27) and Maputo province (14). So between them Maputo city and province account for 74.5 per cent of the new cases. There were also eight cases from Tete, five from Zambezia and one from Nampula.

In line with standard Ministry of Health procedure, all 55 new cases are now in home isolation and their contacts are being traced.

Matsinhe reported that over the same 24 hour period, two Covid-19 patients (one in Zambezia and one in Maputo city) were discharged from hospital, and four new cases were admitted, all of them in Maputo city. Currently, there are 66 patients under medical care in the Covid-19 isolation wards, 61 in Maputo, three in Matola and two in Zambezia.

46 of those in hospital are male, said Matsinhe, and 20 are female. Two are children under the age of 15, two are youths aged between 15 and 24, 34 are adults aged between 25 and 59, and 28 are aged 60 or above.

The clinical condition of 29 of the patients is said to be “moderate”. 34 are seriously ill and three are in a critical state.

In the same 24 hours, a further 54 people were completely cured of Covid-19, 28 of them in Maputo city, 22 in Zambezia, and four in Inhambane. This brings the number of recoveries to 11,659, which is 84.3 per cent of all those diagnosed with the coronavirus since the start of the pandemic.

As of Monday, the geographical breakdown of the 13,823 positive cases, by the provinces where they were diagnosed, was as follows: Maputo city, 6,949; Maputo province, 2,234; Cabo Delgado, 926; Zambezia, 857; Nampula, 614; Tete, 463; Gaza, 438; Sofala, 433; Inhambane, 306; Niassa, 255; Manica, 153.

The number of active cases of Covid-19 is now 2,061, and 83.5 per cent of these cases are from Maputo city and province.

Source: AIM