President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih on Thursday discussed the current situation of COVID-19 in Maldives with the United Nations (UN) Secretary General Antonio Guterres.
Speaking over the telephone, President Solih praised the Secretary General Guterres for his leadership during this global pandemic. He also provided an outline of measures implemented by Maldives at a national level, in order to contain the disease.
President Solih spoke on areas in which the UN could be of assistance to the Maldives and other Small Island Developing States (SIDS). He provided detailed information about the challenges faced during the immediate health response phase.
Additionally, the Secretary General was briefed on the early interventions the Maldivian government took in following the first positive case of COVID-19 in the country on March 7. These measures include declaring State of Public Health Emergency in March, strict border control, screening and quarantine measures.
The President noted that these measures prevented community spread within the country, until April 16. With the first community spread cases found in capital city Male, the greater Male region was put on lockdown. Solih stressed that the government's priority is to curb the spread.
He welcomed the UN's recently established '‘Response and Recovery Fund’ to aid low and middle-income economies that have been heavily impacted by the pandemic, and requested for the UN to aid Maldives.
Highlighting that SIDS such as Maldives heavily depends on international tourism and trade, and consequently, the economies are greatly impacted by the measures imposed to contain coronavirus. Hence, President Solih welcomed the effort by Guterres to restructure debt payment windows and to forgive debts for countries with vulnerable economies.
The President thanked Secretary General for taking the time to discuss the ongoing pandemic and reiterated his gratitude for the support and work by the UN under his leadership to fight this disease.
Maldives now has 25 confirmed and nine active cases of COVID-19, with a total of 16 recoveries.
The World Health Organization has classified the spread of COVID-19 as a global pandemic. The novel coronavirus has infected over two million people and claimed over 145,521 lives around the world. However, out of those infected, more than 547,295 people have recovered.
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