Third day with no new Covid-19 cases in Mozambique, but “we cannot relax”

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Third day with no new Covid-19 cases in Mozambique, but “we cannot relax”

2:42 CAT | 30 Apr 2020

Photo: A Verdade

It had been three days since the last Covid-19 infection was announced in Mozambique. On Wednesday (29), more than 113 suspected cases were tested by the National Health Institute (INS) and 11 others by private laboratories and all tests came back negative. This might give rise to the feeling that transmission could be contained in Cabo Delgado province just as it had been broken in Maputo. But Dr Sérgio Chicumbe warned “we cannot relax”.

“Of the samples tested in the last 24 hours, 44 are from Cabo Delgado Province, one from Sofala Province, 18 from Maputo Province and 50 from Maputo City. We also report the result of 11 samples tested in the private sector, in Maputo, already counted in the cumulative total of tested samples. So, currently, our country continues to have 76 positive cases, 68 of which are local transmission and eight imported,” National Director of Public Health Rosa Marlene said at the usual epidemiological update.

National Director for the Health Survey and Monitoring Area Sergio Chicumbe then clarified that only 44 of the 80 samples received from Cabo Delgado province had so far been tested, because of “the time they were received”. But, “At this moment, complementary samples may be being tested, and tomorrow we will have news”.

With the spread of the new coronavirus apparently broken in the city and province of Maputo and the last patient diagnosed here on the 23rd April, @Verdade asked whether transmission might not also have been contained in Cabo Delgado, since there had been no new instances of infection there since the 26th of the month.

“It is our hope that the transmission in Afungi is not active, but we cannot say that this is for a fact, and therefore we cannot relax. The (health) team there, as well as testing, is doing a lot of work to ensure there is no continuing transmission in Afungi,” the doctor explained.

By Aderito Caldeira

Source: A Verdade