Health Protection Agency (HPA), on Monday night, announced the 44th COVID-19 related fatality in Maldives, less than 24 hours after the previous death.
The deceased was an 72-year-old Maldivian male taken to the Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital’s (IGMH) Emergency Room (ER) in an unresponsive state and declared dead at 1836 hrs.
HPA stated that his COVID-19 test, which was conducted per protocol, came back positive.
He is the 38th local to have succumbed to the virus in Maldives. The remaining fatalities consist of seven expatriates, including six Bangladeshi nationals and one Filipino citizen.
Earlier in the day, HPA confirmed a COVID-19 related death of a 52-year-old Maldivian male, who was receiving treatment at Hulhumalé Medical Facility (HMF)’s Intensive Care Unit (ICU). He passed away at 1132 hours.
With these developments, Maldives currently records a total of 12,314 virus cases of which 947 are active cases, in addition to 11,316 recoveries and 45 deaths.
During 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. Throughout October the numbers had slipped further down below 50, with a few spikes on rare occasions.
Within this same period, the number of recoveries saw a significant increase, bringing the number of recovered cases to over 90 percent.
Despite the sustained decrease in virus cases, HPA has renewed calls for citizens to adhere to protective measures to contain the spread of the virus, cautioning against a public sentiment that the outbreak has been “controlled”.
On March 12, WHO classified the spread of COVID-19 as a global pandemic. To date, the new strain of novel coronavirus has infected over 55 million people and claimed over 1.3 million lives around the world. However, out of those infected, more than 38.2 million people have recovered.
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