Ali Waheed: Largest virus cluster was found in Male’ marketplace

Tourism Minister Ali Waheed, on Monday, said that the biggest COVID-19 cluster to have been identified was linked with shops in the Male’ City marketplace.

He made the remark at the National Emergency Operations Center press briefing this afternoon.

Ali Waheed said that some of the employers of the migrant workers who work in marketplace shops were unaware of their worker’s sleeping arrangements.

He said the government therefore planned establishing an additional migrant accommodation facility outside of the capital within one week's time, and moving migrant workers who live in congested labor quarters there.

The Minister stated that the cluster from the market area had spread to a large number of migrant workers.

The Maldives has so far confirmed 220 cases of the virus. Out of which 136 are foreigners. Bangladeshi nationals have tested positive for the virus the most. Contact tracing on the positive cases have now identified more than 2000 individuals.

Government authorities have been taking measures to reduce the spread of the virus among the migrant population in the Maldives. Police are monitoring 18 locations where nearly 800 migrants reside as part of the work.

Work to move migrants to government-sponsored accommodations are also being carried out.

Most migrants in the country are forced to live in extremely dire and overcrowded residences with poor hygiene standards, which makes the community susceptible to the virus spread. Minister Ali Waheed stated that hundreds of migrants in such conditions would be moved out of the capital to designated facilities in the coming weeks.

In a press conference last night, NEOC medical officer Dr. Ibrahim Afzal stated that the largest cluster of the virus in the country included 517 individuals.