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The long promised Covid-19 treatment centre in the Mavalane General Hospital in Maputo finally opened its door to patients on Monday.
Work on the Mavalane Covid-19 wards was regarded as a priority in January and February, when Mozambique was fighting the second wave of Covid infection, and it was feared that Maputo would run out of beds for Covid-19 patients.
The main Covid-19 treatment centre was the Polana Canico General Hospital, and at one point it was touch and go as to whether this hospital could cope with an avalanche of Covid patients, even with some patients accommodated in tents in the grounds of Maputo Central Hospital.
But when the second wave was deemed to have ended, the Maputo health service had not collapsed, and the Mavalane rehabilitation work was suspended.
Now Mozambique is grappling with a third wave of infection, which the health authorities fear could be worse than the first or second waves, and so work on the Mavalane wards has finally been completed. Six Covid-19 patients have been admitted to this hospital, one on Monday and five on Tuesday.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, the National Director of Medical Care, Luisa Panguene, said the Mavalane centre can hold 320 patients simultaneously, in three Covid-19 wards. The hospital has two large tanks of oxygen for seriously ill Covid-19 patients, who require supplementary oxygen.
Panguene said the Greater Maputo area now has 510 beds for Covid-19 patients – in addition to the 320 at Mavalane, there are 100 beds in the Polana Canico hospital (all of them currently occupied), 40 in the Central Hospital Transit Centre, and 50 in the adjacent city of Matola.
If demand continues to grow she added, a tent with the capacity for 170 beds will be erected on the Mavalane hospital grounds.
The authorities are worried that there may not be enough beds in the western city of Tete, currently one of the areas worst hit by the pandemic. There are 38 beds available in the city’s main hospital, of which 20 are already occupied.
The solution is to convert the new health centre in the Chingodzi neighbourhood, recently inaugurated by President Filipe Nyusi, into a Covid-19 treatment centre. That will make 70 beds available.
That might not be enough given the speed at which Covid-19 is advancing in Tete. 129 people were diagnosed with Covid-19 in Tete on Tuesday, and 513 in the previous week.
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