Province has 90 Covid-19 cases per 100 000 people
KWAZULU-NATAL’S incidence of active Covid-19 infections is now about 90 cases in 100000 people, according to statistics released by the provincial Department of Health.
Dr Sandile Tshabalala, the head of department, gave the KZN Legislature’s health portfolio committee an update on the state of the pandemic in the province on Tuesday.
Tshabalala said it was “worrying” that the general active infection rate in the province had risen to 90 cases per 100 000 population and that the median age of death had dropped from 70 to 62, with an overall age range of 24 to 96.
He said the most common recorded co-morbidities included hypertension (32%) and diabetes mellitus (33%), while the proportion of HIV-infected (6%) patients dying of the virus had also increased.
According to Covid-19 statistics released on Tuesday night, KZN had 16 473 cases with 4 890 recoveries and 205 deaths.
The eThekwini Municipality had accounted for 69% of the reported deaths.
“Ethekwini District has the highest infection rate (137 cases per 100 000) followed by uMgungundlovu District, which had a drastic increase in the incidence rate from 26 to 143 cases per 100 000 population in 12 days (June 22 to July 5),” he said.
He said uMkhanyakude was the only district with less than 20 cases per 100 000 population provincially. “Though eThekwini District has the highest incidence risk, the increase in new cases in the past seven days were below 50%. Ilembe District has an increase of 15% and it was the lowest provincially.”
Tshabalala said the province had several field hospitals with a total of 1 156 quarantine and isolation beds, including those at Coastlands uMhlanga, City Lodge uMhlanga, Montclair Lodge, Coastlands Durban, City Durban and the Pietermaritzburg Showgrounds.
He said the field hospitals had started admitting patients and 50 beds were occupied.
The province’s formal health facilities had a total of 1 266 beds including 790 for isolation, 436 for quarantine and 40 ICU beds.
Tshabalala said additional beds would be made available when needed.