Africa-Press – Mozambique. Mozambican Health Minister Armindo Tiago on Wednesday urged health workers not to regard their profession as just another job.
Speaking at the opening of a scientific conference in Maputo organized by the Higher Institute of Health Sciences (ISCISA) he said “being a health professional is, above all, a vocation, and it is in the education establishments that this vocation should be cultivated”.
“In addition to acquiring knowledge and skills, the ISCISA students should use the privilege of attending public higher education to improve their professional ethics, their empathy for others, the spirit of altruism and scientific humility”, Tiago added.
A health professional could be technically good, he said, but “if he lacks prudence and diligence, he cannot be counted on, either in the practice of medicine or in research”.
He took the opportunity to urge health professionals to show commitment in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and other diseases which could cause health crises, and put the Mozambican health system under pressure.
ISCISA, the Minister said, rather than simply responding to emerging diseases should prioritise research and extension. The ISCISA conference should unfold “in a scientific environment of frank dialogue”, so that the papers presented can contribute to solving the problems that torment thee health and welfare of Mozambicans.
Meanwhile, although the National Health Institute (INS) has announced the third wave of the pandemic officially over, Covid-19 is continuing to claim Mozambican lives. According to a Ministry of Health Wednesday press release, in the previous 24 hours three people died of Covid-19. The latest victims were two men and one women, all of Mozambican nationality, and aged 49, 61 and 66. This brings the total Covid-19 death toll in Mozambique to 1,898.
Since the start of the pandemic, 882,604 people have been tested for the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, 2,438 of them in the previous 24 hours.
2,247 of these tests yielded negative results, and 191 people tested positive for the virus. This brings the number of cases of Covid-19 diagnosed in Mozambique to 149,671. Of the new cases identified on Wednesday, 64.9 per cent were from the four provinces north of the Zambezia – 42 from Nampula, 42 from Niassa, 22 from Zambezia and 18 from Cabo Delgado.
The seven southern and central provinces provided 35.1 per cent of the positive cases, mostly in Maputo. There were 37 cases in Maputo city, eight in Inhambane, seven in Maputo province, five in Sofala, four in Gaza, four in Manica and two in Tete.
The positivity rate (the proportion of those tested found to be carrying the coronavirus) on Wednesday was 7.8 per cent. The rates over the previous few days were 10.8 per cent on Tuesday, 7.4 per cent on Monday, 10.2 per cent on Sunday, and 7.9 per cent on Saturday. The provinces with the highest positivity rates on Wednesday were all in the north – Nampula (16.1 per cent), Niassa (16 per cent) and Zambezia (15.1 per cent). The lowest rates were reported from the central provinces of Sofala (3.2 per cent) and Manica (3.1 per cent).
In the same 24 hour period, six Covid-19 patients were discharged from hospital (three in Cabo Delgado, two in Maputo, and one in Niassa), and 10 new patients were admitted (five in Maputo, three in Niassa and two in Cabo Delgado).
The number of people under medical care in the Covid-19 treatment facilities, rose slightly, from 58 on Tuesday to 59 on Wednesday. 25 of these patients (42.4 per cent) were in Maputo. There were also 16 patients in Nampula, nine in Niassa, two each in Cabo Delgado, Zambezia, Manica and Inhambane and one in Tete. There were no Covid-19 patents hospitalised in Sofala, Gaza or Matola.
Over the previous 24 hours, 388 people were declared fully recovered from Covid-19 (335 in Maputo province, 35 in Inhambane and 18 in Zambezia). The total number of recoveries now stands at 142,769, or 95.4 per cent of all those ever diagnosed with Covid-19 in Mozambique.
The number of active Covid-19 cases fell from 5,200 on Tuesday to exactly 5,000 on Wednesday. The geographical distribution of the active cases was as follows: Maputo city, 2,090 (41.8 per cent of the total); Nampula, 1,135; Cabo Delgado, 594; Maputo province, 399; Niassa, 341; Zambezia, 155; Inhambane, 117; Gaza, 107; Sofala, 25; Manica, 24; and Tete, 13.
