Africa-Press – Mozambique. The Mozambican health authorities on Thursday reported 1,774 new cases of the Covid-19 respiratory disease, and 21 deaths.
According to a Ministry of Health press release, the latest victims were 17 men and four women, all of them Mozambican citizens, and aged between 24 and 94. 10 of them died in Maputo, five in Matola, and one each in Niassa, Zambezia, Tete, Manica, Sofala and Gaza.
This brings the total Covid-19 death toll in Mozambique to 1,388. Of these deaths, 510 (36.7 per cent) occurred this month.
Since the start of the pandemic, 725,363 people have been tested for the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, 5,429 of them in the previous 24 hours.
3,655 of the tests gave negative results, while 1,774 people tested positive for the coronavirus. This brings the total number of Covid-19 cases diagnosed in Mozambique to 117,660.
Of the positive cases identified on Thursday, 972 were women or girls and 802 were men or boys. 176 were children under the age of 15, and 95 were over 65 years old. In 34 cases, no age information was available.
62.9 per cent of the new cases were from the far south – 779 in Maputo city and 336 in Maputo province. There were also 203 positive cases in Manica, 163 in Gaza, 74 in Inhambane, 69 in Sofala, 67 in Zambezia, 33 in Tete, 26 in Niassa, 15 in Nampula and nine in Cabo Delgado.
The national positivity rate (the proportion of those tested found to be infected with the virus) on Thursday was 32.7 per cent. The rates earlier in the week were 35.3 per cent on Wednesday, 30.1 per cent on Tuesday, 34.6 per cent on Monday and 34.1 per cent on Sunday. Thus consistently around a third of all those tested are found to be infected with the coronavirus.
But great differences remain between the provinces. On Thursday, the provinces with the highest positivity rates were Niassa (53.1 per cent), Manica (44.8 per cent), Maputo province (42.2 per cent), Inhambane (41.4 per cent) and Maputo city (37.4 per cent).
Once again, the lowest positivity rates were found in the northern provinces of Nampula (17.9 per cent) and Cabo Delgado (2.5 per cent).
In the same 24 hour period, 36 Covid-19 patients were discharged from hospital (22 in Maputo, five in Matola, two each in Zambezia, Inhambane and Gaza, and one each in Tete, Manica and Sofala). 74 new patients were admitted (40 in Maputo, eight in Gaza, seven in Inhambane, five in Manica, four in Matola, three in Niassa, three in Sofala, two in Tete and two in Zambezia).
The number of people under medical care in the Covid-19 treatment facilities rose from 484 on Wednesday to 501 on Thursday. The great majority of these patients – 339 (67.7 per cent) were in Maputo. There were also 52 patients in Matola, 32 in Sofala, 17 in Niassa, 15 in Inhambane, 13 in Manica, 11 in Zambezia, 10 in Gaza, nine in Tete, and three in Nampula. Cabo Delgado remained the only province where no Covid-19 patients were hospitalised.
The Ministry also reported that on Thursday 833 people were declared fully recovered from Covid-19 (305 in Inhambane, 237 in Manica, 230 in Tete, and 61 in Zambezia). The total number of recoveries now stands at 87,526, which is 74.2 per cent of all those ever diagnosed with Covid-19 in Mozambique.
The number of active Covid-19 cases in the country rose from 28,092 on Wednesday to 29,012 on Thursday. The geographical distribution of these cases was as follows: Maputo city, 18,184 (62.7 per cent of the total); Maputo province, 4,868; Inhambane, 1,586; Niassa, 1,109; Manica, 849; Gaza, 737; Sofala, 732; Zambezia, 311; Tete, 300; Nampula, 264;and Cabo Delgado, 72.
