Mozambique: Covid-19 - Most Cases Now From Northern Provinces

Maputo — The latest statistics from the Mozambican health authorities once again show that the epicentre of the Covid-19 pandemic has shifted to the north of the country, with the number of new cases in southern and central Mozambique dropping sharply.

A Health Ministry Friday press release showed that, of the 365 cases of Covid-19 diagnosed that day, 72.9 per cent were from the four provinces north of the Zambezi (147 from Nampula, 67 from Cabo Delgado, 34 from Zambezia, and 18 from Niassa).

The seven provinces in southern and central Mozambique accounted for 27.1 per cent of the new cases (31 from Maputo city, 27 from Inhambane, 24 from Gaza, seven from Manica, five from Tete, four from Maputo province and one from Sofala).

Since the start of the pandemic, 859,547 people have been tested for the coronavírus that causes Covid-19, 3,241 of them in the previous 24 hours. Of the tests, 2,876 yielded negative results, while 365 people were found to be carrying the coronavirus. This brings the total number of Covid-19 cases diagnosed in Mozambique to 147,431.

Of the cases identified on Friday, 197 were women or girls and 168 were men or boys. 49 were children under the age of 15, and 18 were over 65 years old. For five cases, no age information was available.

The positivity rate (the proportion of those tested found to be carrying the coronavirus) on Friday was 11.3 per cent, slightly lower than the rates on Thursday and Wednesday, of 13.3 and 13.2 per cent.

The provinces with the highest positivity rates were all in the north - Nampula (23.4 per cent), Niassa (22.5 per cent), Zambezia (20.9 per cent) and Cabo Delgado (18.5 per cent). The lowest rates were reported from Sofala (0.9 per cent) and Maputo province (two per cent).

In the same 24 hour period, nine Covid-19 patients were discharged from hospital (two each in Cabo Delgado, Niassa and Matola, and one each in Zambezia, Tete and Inhambane). 14 new patients were admitted (seven in Maputo, two each in Matola, Manica and Niassa, and one in Cabo Delgado).

The number of people under medical care in the Covid-19 treatment centres rose from 118 on Thursday to 122 on Friday. 64 of these patients (52.5 per cent) were in Maputo. There were also 18 patients in Nampula, 11 in Niassa, five in Matola, five in Inhambane, four each in Cabo Delgado, Zambezia and Sofala, three in Manica, two in Tete and two in Gaza.

A further 207 people were declared fully recovered from Covid-19 (129 in Zambezia and 78 in Sofala). This brought the total number of recoveries to 135,638, or 92 per cent of all those ever diagnosed with Covid-19 in Mozambique.

The Ministry reported just one further Covid-19 death in the previous 24 hours. She was an 89 year old Mozambican woman who died in Matola. The Mozambican death toll from Covid-19 now stands at 1,872.

The number of active Covid-19 cases rose from 9,760 on Thursday to 9.917 on Friday. The geographical distribution of the active cases was as follows: Maputo province, 2,901 (29.3 per cent of the total); Maputo city, 2,448; Nampula, 1,595; Inhambane, 890; Cabo Delgado, 670; Niassa, 568; Zambezia, 415; Gaza, 355; Manica, 37; Tete, 37; and Manica, one.

According to the release, 85,711 people were vaccinated against Covid-19 in the previous 24 hours. Since the start of vaccination, in March, 1,252,678 have been completely immunised.

This article originally appeared on Mozambique News Agency

Photo: IOM