Mozambique’s Health ministry is mulling the possibility of using chloroquine to treat severe cases of coronavirus.
So far, there are ten confirmed cases of coronavirus, and the National Director of Public Health, Rosa Marlene, says if a severely affected patient appears, the Health ministry (MISAU) may experiment chloroquine or other effective drugs used to treat the disease abroad.
“Trends show that the use of chloroquine so far has very good results. We will also use it in some cases,” Marlene told a media bfiefing in the capital, Maputo late on Friday.
Chloroquine is one of the oldest and best-known anti-malarial drugs and it has been around for decades. It’s no longer recommended in much of Africa because of the resistance built up to it by the malaria parasites.
An average of 15 suspects are tested each day in the country, although Mozambique has the capacity to test up to 600 people.
The National Director of Public Health adds that work is underway to ensure full capacity utilization.
“Colleagues who work in the field are doing everything they can to increase testing. And it is not enough to increase testing, we have to increase our testing capacity and in this context, we are working to decentralize testing. We want each large population center, such as Sofala, Nampula and Zambézia, to be able to collect and analyze the samples,” said Marlene.
CM/Dng/APA