AfricaPress-mozambique: The Mozambican Health Ministry on Tuesday reported a further deterioration in the main Covid-19 indicators, with increases in the number of new cases, hospitalisations and active cases.
According to a Ministry press release, since the start of the pandemic, 579,273 people have been tested for the coronavírus that causes Covid-19, 1,282 of them in the previous 24 hours. Once again the majority of the samples tested (51 per cent) were from the far south – 604 from Maputo city and 50 from Maputo province. There were also 106 tests from Nampula, 106 from Inhambane, 104 from Tete, 102 from Gaza, 96 from Sofala, 53 from Niassa, 41 from Cabo Delgado, 19 from Manica and one from Cabo Delgado.
1,084 of the tests yielded negative results, and 198 people tested positive for the coronavirus. This brings the total number of Covid-19 cases diagnosed in Mozambique to 72,775. Of the new cases, 183 are known to be Mozambican citizens, six are foreigners (but the Ministry release did not give their nationalities), and in nine cases, their nationality has yet to be confirmed. 126 are men or boys and 72 are women or girls. 15 are children under the age of 15 and nine are over 65 years old.
Most of the cases diagnosed on Tuesday were from the Covid-19 hotspots of Maputo and Tete. There were 130 new cases in Maputo city, 13 in Maputo province and 25 in Tete. Between them, these three provinces accounted for 84.5 per cent of the new cases. There were also nine cases in Sofala, nine in Inhambane, four in Niassa, four in Manica, two in Cabo Delgado, one in Nampula and one in Gaza.
The national positivity rate (the proportion of those tested who prove to be infected) was 15.4 per cent. But this average hides major differences between the provinces – the positivity rate was 24 per cent in Tete, 26 per cent in Maputo province and 21.5 per cent in Maputo city. Manica was not far behind with a rate of 21 per cent. The other provinces had positivity rates of less than ten per cent – e.g. 9.4 per cent in Sofala, 7.5 per cent in Niassa, 4.8 per cent in Cabo Delgado, and 0.9 per cent in Nampula.
Over the same 24 hour period, ten Covid-19 patients were discharged from hospital (five in Maputo, three in Tete, one in Manica and one in Inhambane. But 22 new cases were admitted – 13 in Maputo, six in Tete, two in Matola and one in Manica. The number of people under medical care in the Covid-19 treatment centres rose from 65 on Monday to 78 on Tuesday. 43 of these patients (55.1 per cent) were in Maputo, 14 were in Tete, six in Inhambane, six in Matola, five in Sofala, two in Nampula, and two in Manica. There were no patients in the Covid-19 wards in the other four provinces.
The Ministry release added that on Tuesday 48 people were declared fully recovered from Covid-19 (27 in Maputo province, 15 in Gaza and six in Inhambane). This brings the total number of recoveries to 70,289, or 96.6 per cent of all those ever diagnosed with Covid-19 in Mozambique.
Four Covid-19 deaths were reported on Tuesday – two man and two women, all Mozambicans, and aged 30, 36, 59 and 79. Two of the latest victims died in Maputo, one in Inhambane and one in Tete.
The number of deaths recorded in June is now 18, while in the first 22 days of May it was 17. The national Covid-19 death toll has now risen to 852.
The number of active Covid-9 cases rose from 1,484 on Monday to 1,630 on Tuesday. The geographical breakdown of these cases was as follows: Maputo city, 851 (52.2 per cent of the total); Tete, 308; Maputo province, 188; Sofala, 77; Inhambane, 50; Manica, 45; Nampula, 35; Niassa, 32; Cabo Delgado, 22; and Gaza 22. Zambezia remains the only province where there are no active Covid-19 cases.
