National Emergency Operations Centre (NEOC) on Sunday, revealed that two nurses and a doctor in Addu, were placed in home-isolation after having treated a patient later suspected to have contracted COVID-19.
Speaking at the daily-held press conference broadcasted live nation-wide, President's Office's Communications Undersecretary Mabrouq Abdul Azeed noted the patient visited emergency services at Addu Equatorial Hospital after having returned from Cochin, India.
The decision to isolate the three health care professionals was taken as a precaution as the medical personnel who attended to the patient did so without personal protective equipment (PPE), because the person had sought help from the Emergency Response facility and not the designated Flu Clinic.
Dr Ali Latheef also announced during the conference the Health Protection Agency (HPA) had decided to test all individuals for COVID-19 before releasing them after the 14-day quarantine period, to be implemented on Tuesday
The doctor stated that the change in procedure was finalised after considering previous experiences, World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines and the recent increase of cases in Maldives.
According to Dr Latheef, no current protocol or guideline in place mandated the testing of asymptomatic individuals that have come into contact with a confirmed case.
Following the new recoveries, Maldives currently has four active cases which consist of two Maldivians quarantined after returning from the United Kingdom (UK) and two Italians that tested positive after departing from the country.
The World Health Organization has classified the spread of COVID-19 as a global pandemic. The novel coronavirus has infected over 721,400 people and claimed over 33,900 lives around the world. However, out of those infected, more than 151,000 people have recovered.
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