Maputo — Mozambique’s National Director of Public Health, Rosa Marlene, announced on Tuesday that a fourth person has died from the Covid-19 respiratory disease.
Speaking in Maputo at the Ministry of Health’s daily press conference on the Covid-19 pandemic, Marlene said the latest victim was a six year old child who had been hospitalised in the paediatric intensive care unit in Nampula Central hospital on 21 May. She had a cardiac condition and had been transferred from Mogovolas district.
At the hospital, she was tested for the coronavirus that causes Covid-19. The sample was taken from the child on 26 May, and the result came back on 30 May showing that she was positive for Covid-19. Despite this she was discharged from hospital on 2 June, and the family was instructed to keep her in home isolation. She died at her home on Monday.
This is the fourth coronavirus death reported in Mozambique. Three of the deaths occurred in Nampula, and one in the neighbouring province of Cabo Delgado.
Marlene said that, since the start of the outbreak, 20,263 people have been tested, 682 of them in the previous 24 hours. 143 of these samples came from Tete province, 101 from Nampula, 97 from Niassa, 85 from Inhambane, 68 from Sofala, 62 from Nampula, 42 from Maputo City, 41 from Zambezia, 26 from Manica and 17 from Maputo province.
653 of these were negative, but 29 tested positive for Covid-19, bringing the total number of cases diagnosed to 638. All the positive cases are Mozambican citizens. 1 8 are men or boys, and 11 are women or girls. Three are children under the age of 14.
14 of the new cases came from Nampula City, the only place in the country where the epidemic has entered the phase of community transmission. 4 cases are from Maputo City and five from Maputo Province (four from Matola city and one from Manhica district). There were three cases from Tete (one from Tete city, and two from Marara district), two from the city of Pemba, capital of Cabo Delgado, and one from the town of Cuamba, in Niassa.
In line with standard Health Ministry procedures, all 29 cases have been instructed to undergo home isolation, and staff are tracing their contacts.
Marlene said a further three people have made a full recovery from Covid-19 (two in Zambezia and one in Tete). This brings the total number of recoveries to 160.
Nampula has now overtaken Cabo Delgado as the province where the largest number of cases of Covid-19 have been diagnosed, and the overwhelming majority of them are in Nampula city. The breakdown by province of the 638 positive cases is as follows: Nampula, 204; Cabo Delgado, 197; Maputo city, 105; Maputo Province, 67; Tete, 19; Sofala, 15; Inhambane, 12; Niassa, seven; Zambezia, five; Gaza, four, Manica, three.
As of Tuesday the basic Covid-19 statistics for Mozambique were: 638 positive cases, of which 160 have made a full recovery and 473 are active cases. Five Covid-19 patients have died, four from the disease, and one from an unrelated cause.
Marlene cited information from the Foreign Ministry, according to which there has been no change in the number of Mozambicans in the diaspora infected with the coronavirus. Just 21 Mozambicans abroad tested positive for the virus. One of them (in Germany) died, 11 have recovered and returned to their normal lives, while nine are active cases.
Efforts are still being made to repatriate Mozambicans abroad who wish to come home. Marlene said 191 Mozambicans are stranded abroad, in the following countries: Brazil (52). India (41), United States (30), Portugal (18), United Arab Emirates (12), Italy (five), Saudi Arabia (three), Turkey (two), Iceland (two), Sri Lanka (one), Thailand (one) and Colombia (one).
Source: Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique