Africa-Press – Mozambique. All the main indicators for the Covid-19 pandemic sharply improved in the first fortnight of September, according to the Mozambican Ministry of Health.
A Ministry press release on Monday said that, in the first 13 days of September, there were 2,943 new cases of Covid-19 and 107 hospitalisations. This was a dramatic reduction on the 15,385 new cases and 542 hospitalistations reported in the same period in August.
Over the same two periods the number of Covid-19 deaths fell by 88.3 per cent – from 256 in August to 30 in September.
These improvements, the Ministry said, were largely due to the effectiveness of the measures taken by the government to restrict the spread of the disease.
“We are all pleased”, the release added, “but we would like to warn that Covid-19 is still among us, which demands continual measures to avoid new infections, with all the well-known socio-economic consequences”.
The Ministry reported that, since the start of the pandemic, 878,110 people have been tested for the coronavírus that causes Covid-19, 705 of them in the previous 24 hours,
653 of the tests yielded negative results, while 52 people tested positive for the virus. This brings the number of Covid-19 cases diagnosed in Mozambique to 149,259. Of the cases identified on Monday, 27 were women or girls and 25 were men or boys. Five were children under the age of 15, and four were over 65 years old.
21 of the new cases were from Nampula, 12 from Maputo city, nine from Cabo Delgado, six from Gaza, three from Sofala and one from Maputo province. Not a single positive case was reported from any of the other five provinces (Niassa, Zambezia, Tete, Manica and Inhambane).
The positivity rate (the proportion of those tested found to be carrying the coronavirus) on Monday was 7.4 per cent, the lowest this month. The rate was 10.2 per cent on Sunday, eight per cent on Friday, 8.4 per cent on Thursday, and 10.1 per cent on Wednesday.
The provinces with the highest positivity rates were Cabo Delgado (12.9 per cent) and Nampula (10.6 per cent).
In the same 24 hour period, ten Covid-19 patients were discharged from hospital (three in Maputo, three in Niassa and one each in Matola, Zambezia, Manica and Sofala), and six new cases were admitted (three in Maputo and one each in Nampula, Niassa and Gaza).
The number of people under medical care in the Covid-19 treatment facilities fell from 69 on Sunday to 63 on Monday, 21 of these patients (33.3 per cent) were in Maputo, There were also 21 in Nampula, nine in Niassa, three in Cabo Delgado, two each in Zambezia, Manica and Inhambane, and one each in Tete, Gaza and Matola. No Covid-19 patients were hospitalised in Sofala.
The Ministry reported that 37 of the current patients are men and 26 are women, 29 are aged 60 and above, and 18 are in the 45-59 year age bracket.
The release described the clinical condition of 23 as “moderate”. 32 are seriously ill and eight are in a critical state in intensive care. 45 are receiving supplementary oxygen.
Over the previous 24 hours, 786 people were declared fully recovered from Covid-19 (592 in Nampula, 61 in Niassa, 50 in Inhambane, 34 in Zambezia, 29 in Manica and 20 from Tete). The total number of recoveries now stands at 142,178, or 95.3 per cent of all those ever diagnosed with Covid-19 in Mozambique.
After two days with no Covid-19 deaths, two deaths from the disease were reported on Monday. The latest victims were both Mozambican men, aged 70 and 73. One died in Maputo city and one in Maputo province. This brings the total number of Covid-19 deaths in Mozambique to 1,894,
The number of active Covid-19 cases fell from 5,919 on Sunday to 5,183 on Monday. The geographical distribution of the active cases was as follows: Maputo city, 2,033 (39.2 per cent of the total); Nampula, 1,028; Maputo province, 725; Cabo Delgado, 540; Niassa, 251; Gaza, 250; Zambezia, 178; Inhambane, 130; Sofala, 20; Manica, 19; and Tete, nine.
