Mozambique’s President, Filipe Nyusi and his wife Isaura have tested positive for COVID-19 and are isolating, the president’s office said on Monday.
President Nyusi announced this in a statement on his Facebook page on Monday night, where he revealed that he and his wife were asymptomatic.
The announcement read;
My wife and I have been tested positive for COVID-19 in rapid tests we decided to do after several activities we have carried out over the last few days.
Even though we were asymptomatic, and waiting for definitive PCR test results, we immediately entered isolation in accordance with the health guidelines in force in the country.
In the current context of the circulation of the Omicron variant of SARS-COV-2, highly contagious, we renew the call for strict observance of measures to prevent and combat the COVID-19 pandemic and urge all compatriots greater than 18 years of adhering to ongoing vaccination nationwide.
Nyusi and his wife took rapid tests and were asymptomatic but immediately decided to isolate while awaiting their PCR results, the presidency statement said.
Mozambique’s coronavirus infections are at their peak, data from a Reuters tracker show, with the average number of new cases increasing for seven days in a row.
In total, it has recorded over 2,000 COVID-19 related deaths and 192,000 infections during the pandemic.
Impoverished Mozambique is grappling with a debt crisis and an Islamist insurgency as well as COVID-19.
The discovery of massive natural gas reserves saw Mozambique emerge as a potential major fuel exporter, but graft scandals and the insurgency have undermined that.
