Africa-Press – Mozambique. According to the Mozambican health authorities, as of Sunday no cases of the omicron variant of the coronavirus that causes the Covid-19 respiratory disease had yet been detected in the country.
A Sunday press release from the Ministry of Health stated that increased vigilance at the borders, including the testing of suspected Covid-19 cases, is now under way. So is genome testing to detect possible cases of the omicron variant.
Despite the hysterical reaction in Europe and the United States to omicron, it is not yet clear whether this variant is any worse than earlier mutations of the coronavirus. “Across the world studies are under way seeking to understand the behaviour of this variant”, said the Ministry. “Evidence is not yet available on the functional characteristics of the variant or on its association with serious forms of the disease”.
The Ministry insisted that the only path forward is to step up preventive measures, including vaccination, against all coronavirus variants. The basic preventive measures remain regular washing of hands with soap and water, or disinfection with alcohol, physical distancing, and the correct use of masks to cover the mouth and nose. People ordered into quarantine or isolation must obey these instructions.
The Ministry release reported that, in the previous 24 hours, 49,578 people were vaccinated against Covid-19. To date, 3,828,577 people in Mozambique have been completely vaccinated against the disease, and 6,508,702 have received at least one dose of the vaccine.
Since the start of the pandemic, 976,023 people have been tested for the coronavirus, 920 of them in the previous 24 hours. 916 of the tests gave negative results, while four people tested positive for the coronavirus.
The positive cases were three women and one man, all Mozambican nationals, and aged between 17 and 46. Two were diagnosed in Nampula, one in Maputo city and one in Maputo province.
The positivity rate (the percentage of those tested found to be carrying the virus) on Sunday was 0.43 per cent, which compares with 0.21 per cent on Friday, 0.62 per cent on Thursday, 0.55 per cent on Wednesday, and 0.2 per cent on Tuesday. The positivity rate has not gone above one per cent since 16 November.
The situation in the Covid-19 treatment centres remains static. On Sunday, no Covid-19 patients were discharged from hospital, and no new cases were admitted. Two people remained under medical care in the treatment facilities, one in Maputo and one in Matola.
For the fourth consecutive day, on Sunday no deaths from Covid-19 were reported. The total Covid-19 death toll in Mozambique thus remains 1,940.
There were also no recoveries from the disease reported on Sunday. The total number of recoveries stands at 149,485, or 98.1 per cent of all those ever diagnosed with Covid-19 in Mozambique.
The number of active Covid-19 cases fell from 100 on Friday to 95 on Sunday. The distribution of the active cases was as follows: Cabo Delgado, 26; Nampula, 19; Maputo city, 16; Niassa, eight; Gaza, six; Maputo province, six; Zambezia, five; Manica, five; and Inhambane four. There were no active cases in either Tete or Sofala.
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