Africa-Press – Mozambique. Epidemiological Covid-19 science indicates that it is unlikely that an oil company employee, who was in Maputo and tested positive for the Ómicron variant on his return to Italy, contracted the disease in Mozambique. The Italian health authorities “should be concerned about investigating the flight and not pointing at Mozambique”, a Mozambican epidemiologist told @Verdade.
Travel data indicate that this citizen could only have contracted the Omicron variant in Mozambique more than 17 days ago, given that he arrived in Rome on Nov. 12. Taking into account that the Covid-19 incubation period is 2 to 14 days, it could be expected that contacts in Mozambique of “Patient Zero Italy” would also have tested positive and, given the high transmissibility of the Omicron variant, an exponential increase in cases would also be expected in the country.
However, the most received epidemiological data indicate that “in the last three months, Mozambique has been recording a progressive decrease in the number of cases, hospitalisations and deaths due to the coronavirus”.
By Sunday, Mozambique had registered a cumulative total of 151,520 Covid-19 cases, only five of them reported in the immediately preceding 24 hours. The national positivity rate is 0.36%, and Mozambique has just two patients hospitalised with Covid-19.
Although the country does not have the technical capacity to detect new variants of the respiratory pandemic, the Ministry of Health announced on Saturday that “no case of Covid-19 caused by this (Omicron) variant of the virus has so far been detected in Mozambique”.
A Mozambican epidemiologist told @Verdade that the health authorities in Italy “should be concerned with investigating the flight, and not pointing at Mozambique.”
By Sunday, cases of the Omicron variant have been detected in South Africa, Hong Kong, and Israel.
By
Aderito Caldeora
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