Maputo City has two thirds of coronavirus deaths
The Mozambican health authorities on Friday announced two further deaths from the Covid-19 respiratory disease, bringing the country's death toll, since the start of the pandemic, to 64.
According to a Ministry of Health press release, the two new victims, both from Maputo, were Mozambican men aged 84 and 89. They tested positive for the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 on Monday and Tuesday. Their condition continued to deteriorate and they died on Thursday and Friday.
Maputo city accounts for 44 of the 64 Covid-19 deaths (69 per cent).The other deaths have occurred in Nampula (five), Maputo province (four), Tete (three), Manica (two), Gaza (two)and one each in Cabo Delgado, Zambezia, Sofala and Inhambane. Of all the country's provinces, only Niassa has not registered any Covid-19 deaths.
The release added that, to date, 142,028 people have been tested for the coronavirus, 1,718 of them in the previous 24 hours. 1,329 of these tests were administered in public health units, and 389 in private laboratories.
783 of the samples tested were from Maputo city, 258 from Zambezia, 247 from Cabo Delgado, 116 from Inhambane, 97 from Sofala, 72 from Nampula, 54 from Tete, 48 from Gaza, 35 from Maputo province, and eight from Niassa.
1,627 of the tests were negative, and 91 people tested positive for the coronavirus. This brings the total number of positive cases, since the first case was diagnosed on 22 March, to 8,979. Of the new cases, 90 are Mozambicans and one is Portuguese. 50 are men or boys and 41 are women or girls. Seven are children under 15 years of age, and five are over 65 years old. No age information was available for seven cases.
The vast majority of these cases - 73 - were from Maputo city (80.2 per cent of the new cases). Seven were from Tete, five from Zambezia, four from Niassa, and two from Nampula.
In line with standard Ministry of Health procedure, all the new cases are now in home isolation and their contacts are being traced.
Over the previous 24 hours, five Covid-19 patients were discharged from hospital, but a further three were admitted, all of them in Maputo city. Currently, 47 people are under medical care in Covid-19 isolation wards, one in Nampula and 46 in Maputo city.
Thus the capital is far and away the part of the country worst hit by Covid-19, accounting for the majority of cases, hospitalisations and deaths.
Over the same 24 hour period, 22 people made a full recovery from Covid-19, 21 in Tete and one in Zambezia. The number of recoveries has now reached 5,595 (62.3 per cent of all those who tested positive for the coronavirus).
As of Friday, the geographical distribution of all 8,979 positive cases, by the provinces where they were diagnosed, was as follows: Maputo city, 4,062; Maputo province, 1,542; Cabo Delgado, 714; Zambezia, 621; Nampula, 585; Gaza, 335; Tete, 312; Sofala, 237; Niassa, 232; Inhambane, 230; Manica, 109.
The basic Covid-19 statistics for Mozambique now stand at: 8,979 confirmed cases, of whom 5,595 have made a complete recovery, and 3,316 are active cases. 68 Covid-19 patients have died - 64 from the disease, and four from other causes.
This article originally appeared on AIM
Photo: Ricardo Franco/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock