Maputo — The Mozambican health authorities on Tuesday announced a further death from the Covid-19 respiratory disease, bringing the known death toll to 28.
According to a press release from the Ministry of Health, the latest victim was a 61 year old Mozambican man who was admitted to the Chamanculo General Hospital in Maputo on 28 August, suffering from a serious respiratory illness.
He was transferred to Machava General Hospital in the neighbouring municipality of Matola where he was tested for the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 on 4 September. The result came back, showing that the man was positive for the coronavirus on Monday. But his condition continued to deteriorate and he died on Tuesday morning.
The Ministry release said that, since the first case was diagnosed on 22 March, 107,083 people have been tested for the coronavirus, 701 of them in the previous 24 hours. All these tests were carried out in public sector laboratories.
Of the samples tested, 172 were from Niassa, 141 from Zambezia, 120 from Maputo province, 102 from Maputo city, 92 from Cabo Delgado, 45 from Tete, 14 from Inhambane, 12 from Nampula, two from Manica and one from Sofala.
611 of the tests proved negative, and 90 were positive for the coronavirus. This brings the number of positive cases diagnosed in Mozambique since the start of the pandemic to 4,647. All 90 new cases are Mozambicans. 63 are men and 24 are women. Two of the cases are imported – they are Mozambicans who recently returned from South Africa.
In a sharp change from cases reported earlier in the month, there were only a handful of cases from Maputo. There was a sudden, and unexpected spike in cases from the central province of Zambezia. There were 54 Zambezia cases (45 from the provincial capital, Quelimane, three from Nicoadala district, three from Mocuba, two from Alto Molocue, and one from Inhassunge),
23 cases were from Pemba, capital of Cabo Delgado province (all of which were detected from tracing contacts of people diagnosed earlier), two were from Tete city, one from the Manica provincial capital, Chimoio, and one from the port of Nacala, in Nampula province. Maputo city contributed six cases, and there were three from Maputo province (two from Matutuine district and one from Marracuene).
In line with standard Ministry of Health procedure, all 90 new cases are in home isolation, and their contacts are being traced.
In the same 24 hour period, a further three Covid-19 patients were hospitalised, two in Maputo city and one in Nampula. The number of people currently under medical care in isolation wards is 22 (19 in Maputo city, two in Tete and one in Nampula).
The release added that a further 18 people have made a full recovery from Covid-19, all of them from Cabo Delgado. This brings the total number of recoveries to 2,715 (58.4 per cent of all positive cases diagnosed since the start of the pandemic).
As of Tuesday, the geographical breakdown of all 4,647 positive cases, by the provinces where they were diagnosed, was as follows: Maputo city, 1,744; Maputo province, 839; Cabo Delgado, 640; Nampula, 550; Gaza, 177; Sofala, 173; Niassa, 123; Zambezia, 117; Inhambane, 101, Manica, 96; Tete, 87.
Thus the main Covid-19 statistics for Mozambique are: 4,647 confirmed cases, of which 2,715 have made a complete recovery, and 1,900 are active cases. 32 Covid-19 patients have died, 28 from the disease and four from other causes.
Despite the latest increases from Zambezia and Cabo Delgado, the figures remain dominated by Maputo city and province which account for 55.6 per cent of all cases and 68 per cent of active cases.
Source: Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique