Maputo — The Mozambican health authorities on Friday reported a further 92 new cases of the Covid-19 respiratory disease, the largest number of new cases in a single 24 hour period since the 100 cases reported on 3 February.
For the previous four days between 80 and 90 new cases a day were reported. This is a sharp increase over the handful of new cases a day reported throughout April and May. But there have been no corresponding rises in the death rate or in the number of Covid-19 patients hospitalised, both of which remain very low.
According to a Friday press release from the Ministry of Health, of the new cases diagnosed on Friday, 61 were women and 31 were men. 89 were Mozambican citizens and three were foreigners (in line with normal practice, their nationalities were not disclosed). They were aged between three and 75. Nine were children under the age of 15.
Almost all were from the Maputo area - 45 from Maputo city and 37 from Maputo province. There were also seven cases from Gaza, one from Inhambane, one from Sofala and one from Niassa.
Since the start of the pandemic, 1,334,039 people have been tested in Mozambique for the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, 744 of them on Friday. 652 of these tests yielded negative results, and the 92 positive cases brought the total number of Covid-19 cases diagnosed in Mozambique to 226,325.
The positivity rate (the percentage of people tested found to be carrying the virus) rose from 10.61 per cent on Thursday to 12.37 per cent on Friday.
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The Ministry release reported no deaths from Covid-19 on Thursday. The total death toll from the disease in Mozambique thus remains 2,206.
No Covid-19 patients were discharged from hospital on Friday, but six new patients were admitted. Thus, the number of people under medical care in the Covid-19 wards rose from three on Thursday to nine on Friday (eight in Maputo city and one in Manica). Two of these patients are under intensive care and are receiving supplementary oxygen.
32 people were declared to have made a full recovery from Covid-19, all of them in Maputo province. The total number of recoveries now stands at 223,659, which is 98.82 per cent of all cases of Covid-19 ever diagnosed in Mozambique.
The number of active Covid-19 cases rose from 396 on Thursday to 456 on Friday. The geographical distribution of the active cases was as follows: Maputo city, 233; Maputo province, 1430; Gaza, 44; Cabo Delgado, 16; Inhambane,13; Niassa, three; Sofala, three; Nampula, two; and Manica, two. There were no active cases in Zambezia or Tete.
The Ministry release also reported that, over the previous 24 hours, a further 3,563 people were vaccinated against Covid-19. The total number fully vaccinated against the disease now stands at 14,326,963. This is 94.2 per cent of all citizens aged 18 and above.
