Maputo — Mozambique has recorded a further 44 cases of the Covid-19 respiratory disease, bringing to 553 the number of cases detected since the start of the pandemic.

Speaking on Saturday, at the Ministry of Health's daily press briefing on the Covid-19 crisis, the general director of the National Health Institute (INS), Ilesh Jani, said that to date Mozambican laboratories have tested 18,061 people for Covid-19, 1,142 of them in the previous 24 hours.

Of the samples tested in the two public sector institutions, 183 were from Nampula, 166 from Maputo City, 93 from Niassa, 88 from Sofala, 77 from Tete, 61 from Maputo province, 52 from Cabo Delgado and 39 from Inhambane.

Jani said that 15 of the new cases are from Cabo Delgado, 11 are from Nampula, 11 are from Tete, two are from Sofala, three are from Maputo province and two are from Maputo city.

Broken down by province, the distribution of the 553 positive cases is as follows: Cabo Delgado, 188; Nampula, 165; Maputo City, 83; Maputo Province, 60; Tete, 16; Sofala, 15; Inhambane, 11; Niassa, six; Gaza, four; Manica, three; Zambezia, two.