Covid-19 update: SA records two fatalities in 24 hours

South Africa has recorded 41 Covid-19 deaths on Thursday, with two of these having occurred in the past 24 – 48 hours.  

This brings the total fatalities to 99,499 to date. 

Due to the ongoing audit exercise by the National Department of Health (NDoH), there may be a backlog of Covid-19 mortality cases reported.   

The country also reported 1,853 new Covid-19 cases on Thursday, which brings the total number of laboratory-confirmed cases to 3.679,539.  

This increase represents a 6.5% positivity rate, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), a division of the National Health Laboratory Service, said in a statement.  

The majority of new cases today are from Gauteng Province (35%), followed by Western Cape (23%). KwaZulu-Natal accounted for 20%, Eastern Cape, Free State and Mpumalanga each accounted for 5% respectively; North West accounted for 4%; Limpopo and Northern Cape accounted for 2% respectively of today’s new cases. 

23 166 727 tests have been conducted in both public and private sectors. 

There has been an increase of 65 hospital admissions in the past 24 hours. 

Molnupiravir: WHO recommends anti-Covid-19 pill for elderly, unvaccinated 

The World Health Organization on Wednesday recommended an anti-Covid-19 pill – Molnupiravir – be taken by sufferers who have mild symptoms but are at high risk of hospitalisation. 

This includes the elderly and the unvaccinated. 

Who should (and shouldn’t) take it 

The pill, called Molnupiravir and developed by US pharmaceutical Merck, is taken as soon as possible after Covid-19 symptoms develop and then for the following five days. 

A WHO group of experts said in the British Medical Journal people with weak immune systems or chronic diseases were also recommended to take the pill if they had non-severe Covid. 

However “young and healthy patients, including children, and pregnant and breastfeeding women should not be given the drug due to potential harms,” they said. 

Reduced risk of hospitalisation 

The UN agency’s new recommendation was based on the results of six randomised controlled trials involving 4,796 patients, the “largest dataset on this drug so far”. 

The trials suggested Molnupiravir reduced the risk of going to hospital, with 43 fewer admissions per 1,000 high-risk patients, as well as speeding up the pace at which symptoms cleared up by an average of 3.4 days.  

There was less indication it had an effect on mortality, with just six fewer deaths per 1,000 patients. 

Additional reporting by AFP