Mozambique Covid-19: Positivity rate and hospitalisations continue to rise – AIM

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Mozambique Covid-19: Positivity rate and hospitalisations continue to rise – AIM
Mozambique Covid-19: Positivity rate and hospitalisations continue to rise – AIM

Africa-PressMozambique. The Covid-19 positivity rate (the percentage of people tested who are carrying the coronavirus that causes the disease) is on the increase across Mozambique, particularly in the Greater Maputo area, and in Tete and Sofala provinces, warned Sergio Chicumbe, the Director of Surveys at the National Health Institute (INS) on Monday.

Addressing a Maputo press conference, Chicumbe added that the number of Covid-19 patients entering hospitals was now seven times greater than it had been at the start of the month. Nonetheless, the health authorities were not yet considering imposing a “cordon sanitaire” on any Covid-19 hotspot.

The most obvious candidate for a cordon sanitaire would be Tete city. Such a measure would be a local lockdown in which nobody would be allowed to enter or leave the city.

Asked whether mass testing is being considered for Tete, Chicumbe said a new approach was being tried which involved a mixture of the standard PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests and rapid blood tests (the latter do not indicate whether the person tested is currently infectious, but they show whether he or she has been in contact with the virus).

“This approach has begun in Tete with new technology and later the whole country will benefit”, he said.

Chicumbe said there are no specific preventive measures to deal with the Delta variant of the coronavirus, first identified in India, and known to be present in Tete. The preventive measures are the same for all strains of the coronavirus, he said, “but the difference is that this new variant has a high level of transmissibility”.

“We must continue to comply scrupulously with the measures of prevention”, he stressed.

The Deputy National Director of Public Health, Benigna Matsinhe, said that, since the start of the pandemic, 593,995 people have been tested for the coronavirus, 2,021 of them in the previous 24 hours.

Of the samples tested, 684 (33.8 per cent) were from Maputo city, 358 from Nampula, 298 from Niassa, 242 from Gaza, 193 from Inhambane, 99 from Sofala, 28 from Tete, six from Zambezia and one from Manica. No tests were reported from Cabo Delgado.

1,740 of the tests yielded negative results, and 284 people tested positive for the coronavirus. This brings the total number of Covid-19 cases diagnosed in Mozambique to 75,442.

Of the new cases reported on Monday, 274 are Mozambicans, one is known to be a foreigner (but Matsinhe did not reveal his or her nationality), and in ten cases, nationality has yet to be confirmed.

153 are women or girls and 121 are men or boys. 27 are children under the age of 15, and 14 are over 65 years old. No age information was available for 11 cases.

168 of the new cases were from Maputo city and 47 were from Maputo province. Between them Maputo city and province accounted for 75.7 per cent of these cases. There were also 19 cases from Inhambane, 16 from Gaza, 12 from Tete, 12 from Niassa, seven from Sofala and three from Nampula. None of the tests in Zambezia or Manica were positive.

The national positivity rate on Monday was 14 per cent, a decline on thee 24.4 per cent rate found at the weekend. Earlier rates were 17.4 per cent on Friday, 22.7 per cent on Thursday, and 20.1 per cent on Wednesday.

Positivity rates were much higher in the Covid-19 hotspots of Tete and Maputo. There were only 28 tests in Tete – but 12 of these were positive, which is a positivity rate of 42.8 per cent. The positivity rate in Maputo province was 42 per cent, and in Maputo city 24.6 per cent. Inhambane also had a rate higher than the national average, at 19.2 per cent.

Rates much lower than the average were found in Sofala (seven per cent), Gaza (6.6 per cent), Niassa (four per cent), and Nampula (0.8 per cent).

Matsinhe said that, over the past 24 hours, 16 Covid-19 patients were discharged from hospital (11 in Maputo, four in Tete and one in Sofala), but 33 new cases were admitted (30 in Maputo and three in Matola).

As of Monday, 159 people were under medical care in the Covid-19 treatment centres, a jump from 143 on Sunday. The great majority of these patients – 109 (68.6 per cent) were in Maputo. There were also 17 in Tete, 13 in Matola, 11 in Sofala, three in Nampula, two in Zambezia, two in Manica, one in Niassa and one in Inhambane.

Matsinhe said that 103 of those currently hospitalised are men and 56 are women. 64 of the patients (40.3 per cent) are aged 60 and above, and 52 (32.7 per cent) are aged between 45 and 59. She described the clinical state of 68 of the patients as “moderate”. But 86 (54.1 per cent) are seriously ill, and five are in a critical state. 112 patients are receiving supplementary oxygen and the five who are in critical condition are now in intensive care.

Matsinhe announced that 69 people were declared fully recovered from Covid-19 on Monday (33 in Sofala, 18 in Maputo province, 15 in Nampula and three in Gaza). This brings the total number of recoveries to 71,150, or 94 per cent of those ever diagnosed with Covid-19 in Mozambique.

One more Covid-19 death was reported on Monday, bringing the total death toll in Mozambique to 869. The latest victim was a 62 year old Mozambican woman. Matsinhe said this was the 35th death in June so far, which compares with 21 deaths in the first 28 days of May.

The number of active Covid-19 cases rose from 3,185 on Sunday to 3,399 on Monday. The geographical breakdown of these cases was as follows: Maputo city, 1,518 (44.7 per cent); Maputo province, 695; Tete, 589; Sofala, 169; Inhambane, 141; Niassa, 98; Manica, 69; Gaza, 52; Nampula, 27; Cabo Delgado; and Zambezia, 18.

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