Health Protection Agency (HPA) on Saturday announced the two new confirmed case of COVID-19 in capital city Male.
According to the agency, case MAV033 was identified to be a 'direct contact' of case MAV028 while MAV034 is a 'direct contact' of case MAV027. Both are Maldivian nationals.
The patients are currently being transferred to an isolation facility as per HPA.
With this, the total number of cases spread within Male from community transmission increased to 14.
The first community transmission was (MAV021) a local female with no recent travel history, who presented to the flu clinic in Male after developing symptoms. She tested positive for the virus on April 15.
Since then, eleven more patients, from three different clusters, have tested positive for the virus. Authorities are currently conducting contact tracing for these cases and have identified 305 contacts for case MAV021, MAV022, and MAV023, out of which 157 individuals are direct contacts, while the rest are secondary contacts.
On April 17 alone, five people have been tested positive for coronavirus, marking the highest number of positive cases recorded in the country within 24hrs.
Maldives now has 34 confirmed and 18 active cases of COVID-19, with a total of 16 recoveries. A total of 1,053 suspect cases were placed in quarantine while 61 others have been isolated.
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 154,726 lives around the world. However, out of those infected, more than 579,187 people have recovered.