Health Emergency Operations Centre (HEOC) spokesperson Dr Nazla Rafeeq revealed that the new variants of the coronavirus were likely to be identified in Maldives.
Speaking at a press conference held by HEOC, Dr Nazla highlighted that the identification of new COVID-19 variants in neighbouring countries indicated the strong possibility that locals, expatriate workers or tourists arriving in Maldives could also have contracted the virus from abroad.
stated that the likelihood of confirmed cases of the new variant were a major factor in the recent decision to reinstate a mandatory quarantine period of 10 days for all individuals excluding tourists that enter Maldives.
Dr Nazla also reiterated that previously announced efforts to send samples abroad to test for the presence of the coronavirus variants were underway.
Furthermore, the HEOC Spokesperson stated that authorities were also working to conduct a survey to estimate the prevalence of the variants, in spite of the obstacles presented by ongoing travel restrictions.
The new variant of the coronavirus, which was initially reported from the south of England, is highly contagious and thought to be up to 70 percent more transmissible than the original strain. However, authorities stated that infections caused by the COVID mutation were not more severe.
As of Thursday, Maldives recorded daily cases numbering over 100 for the fifth consecutive day, following a long period of maintaining lower numbers of virus cases.
With the sudden spike in numbers, HPA announced a curfew from 1200hrs to 0400hrs in the capital region, in addition to prohibiting large gatherings, as an attempt to control the spread of the virus.
Currently, the island nation records a total of 15,496 virus cases of which 1,410 are active cases, in addition to 14,028 recoveries and 51 deaths.
Last August, authorities tightened the safety measures implemented in the Greater Male' region, following an alarming upsurge of COVID-19 cases after the state initiated efforts to steer the country towards a 'new normal' with the phased easing of lockdown restrictions. After a long period of recording over 100 daily cases, the numbers fell to two-digits during the most part of September 2020.
Throughout the rest of last year, numbers slipped further down below 50, with a few spikes on rare occasions.
This prompted HPA to ease certain several safety measures imposed to control the spread of COVID-19. These leniencies included the cancellation of the city-wide curfew over the greater Male’ region, the reduction of quarantine periods to 10 days as well as cancelling mandatory quarantine for locals returning to Maldives and for locals travelling to resorts.
However, cases have been on the rise throughout January 2021, with active cases surpassing the 1,000-mark after months of recording three-digit numbers. New clusters were identified on operational resorts as well as several islands in the south.
On March 12, 2020, WHO classified the spread of COVID-19 as a global pandemic. To date, the new strain of novel coronavirus has infected over 1 billion people and claimed over 2.2 million lives around the world. However, out of those infected, more than 73.8 million people have recovered.
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