Two more Covid-19 deaths but 247 recoveries

Maputo, 10 Dec (AIM) – The Mozambican health authorities on 9 December announced two further deaths from the Covid-19 respiratory disease, 67 new cases, and 247 recoveries.

According to a press release from the Health Ministry, the two latest victims are both men, a 70 year old Mozambican and a 78 year old Indian. They were hospitalised in a Maputo health unit, but their condition did not improve. The Mozambican was declared dead on 1 December, and the Indian on 4 December, The Ministry did not explain why it had taken several days to announce the deaths.

The total Mozambican death toll from Covid-19 now stands at 138. Of these deaths, 107 (77.5 per cent) have occurred in Maputo city.

The release said that, since the start of the pandemic, 241,226 people have been tested for the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, 1,416 of them in the previous 24 hours. Of the samples tested, 604 were from Maputo city, 222 from Cabo Delgado, 161 from Niassa, 125 from Maputo province, 105 from Nampula, 84 from Manica, 67 from Zambezia, 46 from Sofala, and two from Tete. No tests were carried out in Gaza and Inhambane provinces.

1,349 of the tests gave negative results and 67 people tested positive for the coronavirus. This brings the number of confirmed cases of the disease in Mozambique, since the first patient was diagnosed on 22 March, to 16,440.

63 of the new cases are Mozambicans, one is South African, one Kenyan, one Portuguese and one Indian. 35 are women or girls and 32 are men or boys. Two are children under the age of 15, and four are over 65 years old. In another four cases, no age information was provided.

The vast majority of the cases – 48 – were from Maputo city, and a further five were from Maputo province. Thus Maputo city and province accounted for 79 per cent of the cases reported on Wednesday. There were also eight cases from Niassa, three from Nampula and three from Zambezia.

In line with standard Health Ministry procedure, all 67 new cases are in home isolation, and their contacts are being traced.

The release announced that, in the same 24 hour period, 11 Covid-19 patients were discharged from hospital in Maputo city – but this was cancelled out by 11 new admissions (one in Zambezia and ten in Maputo). Currently, 36 people are under medical care in the Covid-19 isolation wards (28 in Maputo, two in Matola, five in Zambezia and one in Tete).

The Ministry also reported that a further 247 people have made a full recovery from Covid-19 (231 in Maputo city, eight in Inhambane, five in Zambezia, and three in Manica). This brings the total number of recoveries to 14,684 – which is 89.3 per cent of all those diagnosed with the coronavirus in Mozambique.

There are now 1,614 active cases of Covid-19 in Mozambique, distributed as follows: Maputo city, 1,307 (81 per cent of the total); Cabo Delgado, 76; Maputo province, 73; Gaza, 53; Inhambane, 21; Niassa, 19, Nampula, 17; Zambezia, 15; Tete, 13; Manica, 10; Sofala, 10.

(AIM)