The Health Protection Agency (HPA), on Sunday, began testing all inmates and officers at Male' Prison for COVID-19.
Commissioner of Prisons Ahmed Mohamedfulhu revealed that the testing was initiated after an employee of Maldives Correctional Service (MCS) was recently confirmed to have the virus.
Further, the Commissioner assured that MCS was following proper protocols to ensure the safety of inmates and officers at the detention facility.
According to MCS, the employee tested positive for COVID-19 on June 19, Saturday.
The National Emergency Operation Centre (NEOC) revealed that the individual in question was placed under home quarantine on June 18, after being identified as a contact of a person that tested positive for COVID-19 during random sampling in the capital.
Random samples previously collected by HPA from Maafushi Prison all tested negative.
As one of the most densely populated cities in the world, Maldives' capital Malé recorded a significant increase in COVID-19 cases in the first weeks following the first confirmed local transmission on April 15.
However, the number of recoveries have continued to rise, with roughly 81 percent of patients now recovered.
Maldives presently records a total of 2,203 confirmed cases, out of which 387 are active cases of COVID-19. The country records 1,803 recoveries and eight fatalities so far.
WHO has classified the spread of COVID-19 as a global pandemic. The new strain of novel coronavirus has infected over 9 million people and claimed over 470,700 lives around the world. However, out of those infected, 4.8 million people have recovered.
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