Maputo — The Mozambican health authorities on Wednesday announced the diagnosis of a further 14 cases of the respiratory disease Covid-19, bringing the total number since the pandemic began to over 900.
According to a Wednesday press release from the Ministry of Health, since the first case was diagnosed on 22 March, 30,273 people have been tested, 757 of them in the previous 24 hours. 620 of these were tested in public facilities and 137 in private laboratories.
Of those tested in the public sector, 198 were from Maputo City, 177 from Nampula, 115 from Maputo province, 80 from Sofala, 30 from Inhambane, 10 from Zambezia, seven from Manica and three from Cabo Delgado. No similar break down was given for the tests held in the private sector.
743 of the tests were negative, and 14 people tested positive for the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, bringing the total number of positive cases to 903. 13 of the positive cases were tested in the public sector, and one was tested in a private laboratory.
Of those who tested positive, 13 were Mozambicans and one was a Chinese citizen. Ten (71.4 per cent) were men or boys, and four were women or girls. Three were children under 15 years of age, two were adolescents aged between 15 and 24, and nine were adults aged between 25 and 64.
Six of the new cases are from Nampula province – two from Nampula city, two from the port of Nacala, and one each from the districts of Murrupula and Mogovolas.
Three cases are from Zambezia (two from the provincial capital, Quelimane, and one from Milange district, on the border with Malawi). Another three cases are from Maputo province (one at the Ressano Garcia border with South Africa, one in Boane district, and one in Matola city). One case is from Maputo city, and one from Nhamatanda district in Sofala.
In line with standard Ministry of Health procedure, all 14 have been placed in home isolation, and their contacts are being traced.
In the same 24 hour period, one more Covid-19 patient has been hospitalised (in an isolation ward in Tete province), bringing the number hospitalised to six. Two are in Nampula, one in Maputo City, one in Beira and one in Gaza.
The Ministry also announced that a further 16 patients have made a full recovery from Covid-19 (seven in Maputo city, five in Cabo Delgado, two in Tete and two in Zambezia). This brings the total number of Covid-19 patients who have recovered to 248.
As of Wednesday, the breakdown of the 903 positive cases by province was as follows: Nampula, 299; Cabo Delgado, 267; Maputo City, 139; Maputo Province, 100; Tete, 24; Sofala, 23; Niassa, 14; Zambezia, 14; Inhambane, 13; Gaza, seven; Manica, three.
The basic Covid-19 statistics for Mozambique are now: 903 confirmed cases, of whom 248 have made a full recovery, and 647 are active cases. Eight Covid-19 patients have died, six from the disease itself and two from unrelated pathologies.
Source: Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique