The Ministry of Health, on Monday, announced the extension of the State of Public Health Emergency declared in Maldives due to the COVID-19 pandemic, until February 5.
According to the ministry, the state of emergency was extended as a safety precaution after the Health Protection Agency (HPA)'s Director-General of Public Health Maimoona Aboobakuru issued a warning over the still-standing possibility of community spread.
Maldives declared its first-ever state of public health emergency on March 12, under Section 33 of the 7/2012 Public Health Act, over the COVID-19 pandemic for a period of 30 days.
It has since been extended nine times with the last extension taking place on December 5, until January 4.
At present, Maldives records a total of 13,893 virus cases of which 634 are active cases, in addition to 13,204 recoveries and 48 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, including the recent spikes as a result of four new virus clusters.
Within this same period, the number of recoveries saw a significant increase, bringing the number of recovered cases to over 94 percent.
HPA recently eased several safety measures imposed to control the spread of COVID-19. These leniencies include 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.
Despite the sustained decrease in virus cases, the agency 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 86.1 million people and claimed over 1.8 million lives around the world. However, out of those infected, more than 61 million people have recovered.
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