Africa-Press – Mozambique. The number of new cases of the Covid-19 respiratory disease recorded in Mozambique has doubled in the space of a week, according to the National Director of Public Health, Rosa Marlene.
Speaking at a Maputo press conference on Monday evening, Marlene said that, in the previous seven days, there were 10,404 new cases of Covid-19, but in the previous week there were only 5,010. The weekly number of cases had thus increased by 107.7 per cent.
The number of people hospitalised because of Covid-19 rose by almost 60 per cent between the two weeks – from 269 to 430.
The rise in the number of Covid-19 deaths was even more startling. Marlene said that in the previous week there were 30 deaths, but in the week ending Monday there were 92. That is a rise of 206.7 per cent.
Loss of life was particularly heavy among Covid-19 patients who also suffered from other conditions, such as high blood pressure, diabetes and HIV/AIDS. Marlene urged “a redoubling of special care for the people in these high risk groups”.
14 Covid-19 deaths were notified on Monday – eight men and six women, all Mozambican citizens and aged between 15 and 91, Eight of them died in Maputo, two in Tete, and one each in Sofala, Inhambane, Gaza and Matola.
Over the previous 24 hours, 1,687 people had been diagnosed with the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, the highest number ever recorded in a single day. The previous record was set on Saturday, when 1,686 positive cases were diagnosed.
The five worst days for the Mozambican epidemic were all within the past week:
6 July – 1,458 cases
8 July – 1,437 cases
9 July – 1.327 cases
10 July – 1,686 cases
12 July – 1,687 cases.
Since the start of the pandemic, 642,511 people have been tested for the coronavirus, 3,737 of them in the previous 24 hours. Slightly more than half the samples tested (1,873 – 50.1 per cent) were from Maputo city. There were also 380 samples from Inhambane, 305 samples from Nampula, 281 from Niassa, 278 from Gaza, 260 from Maputo province, 178 from Zambezia, 93 from Tete, 69 from Sofala, six from Manica and only one from Cabo Delgado.
2,050 of the tests gave negative results and 1,687 people tested positive for the coronavirus. To date, 90,555 Covid-19 cases have been diagnosed in Mozambique.
Most of the new cases came from Maputo city (1,104) and Maputo province (136). Between them, Maputo city and province accounted for 73.5 per cent of the cases identified on Monday. There were also 135 cases from Inhambane, 127 from Gaza, 97 from Niassa, 41 from Tete, 29 from Zambezia, 13 from Nampula, four from Sofala and one from Manica. The one person tested in Cabo Delgado was negative.
The national positivity rate (the proportion of those tested found to be infected with the virus) on Monday was 45.1 per cent, the highest registered this year. The rates over the previous few days were 32.4 per cent on Sunday, 33.9 per cent on Saturday and 37.4 per cent on Friday. Hence on Monday, well over four out of every ten people tested were carrying the coronavirus,
The provinces with the highest positivity rates were Maputo city (58.9 per cent), and Maputo province (50.6 per cent), followed by Gaza (45.7 per cent), Tete (44.1 per cent) and Inhambane (35.5 per cent).
As has happened repeatedly this month, the positivity rates north of the Zambezi were relatively low, except for Niassa, which recorded a rate of 34.5 per cent. The rate in Zambezia was 16.3 per cent, and in Nampula 4.1 per cent. There was only one test and no positive cases in Cabo Delgado.
Over the same 24 hour period, 33 Covid-19 patients were discharged from hospital (20 in Maputo, five in Tete, five in Matola and three in Sofala). But 58 new cases were admitted (33 in Maputo, eight in Sofala, five in Matola, four in Tete, three in Zambezia, and two each in Nampula, Manica, Inhambane and Gaza).
The number of people under medical care in the Covid-19 wards rose from 363 on Sunday to 374 on Monday – a new record for the number of Covid-19 patients hospitalised. 259 of these patients (69.3 per cent) were in Maputo. There were also 35 patients in Sofala, 27 in Matola, 24 in Tete, 11 in Manica, seven in Gaza, four in Zambezia, three in Inhambane, three in Nampula, and one in Niassa. Cabo Delgado remained the only province where no Covid-19 patients were hospitalised.
Marlene said that 246 of the patients are men and 128 are women. 158 are over 60 years old and 97 are aged between 45 and 59. Marlene described the clinical condition of 116 as “moderate”, while 238 are seriously ill and 20 are in a critical state in intensive care units. 287 are receiving supplementary oxygen.
On Monday, 263 people were declared fully recovered from Covid-19 (152 in Manica, 64 in Gaza, 35 in Zambezia and 12 in Cabo Delgado).This brings the total number of recoveries to 73,880, which is 81.6 per cent of all those ever diagnosed with Covid-19 in Mozambique.
Then number of active Covid-19 cases rose from 14,265 on Sunday to 15,675 on Monday. The geographical distribution of these cases was as follows: Maputo city, 8,528 (54.4 per cent of the total); Maputo province, 2,189; Tete, 2,097; Gaza, 718; Sofala, 602; Mania, 539; Inhambane, 473; Niassa, 336; Zambezia, 86; Nampula, 84; and Cabo Delgado, 23.
Asked whether the Health Ministry was considering imposing a “cordon sanitaire” around Covid-19 hotspots such as Maputo and Tete cities, Marlene ruled this out. A cordon sanitaire under which nobody is allowed in or out of the affected areas is a local lockdown and Marlene did not believe it would be effective. She stressed that the only way to fight Covid-19 is through preventive measures such as regular hand washing, social distancing, wearing masks and avoiding crowds.
