New COVID-19 cases rise to 39, total cases to 785

National Emergency Operations Center has announced the health authorities confirmed 39 new COVID-19 cases in Maldives on Saturday.

The announcement was made by Health Protection Agency (HPA) epidemiologist Dr. Ibrahim Afzal at a NEOC press briefing on Saturday night.

The 39 new cases are the 22 cases HPA confirmed by 2 pm and 17 more cases identified later which have yet to be updated on HPA’s dashboard.

The 22 new cases confirmed by HPA earlier were 16 Maldivians, four Bangladeshis, one Indian and one Nepali.

The details of the later cases have yet to be announced.

The new cases on Saturday include a 43-year-old heart patient who was medically evacuated from Addu city to Indhira Gandhi Memorial Hospital (IGMH) in Male’ city. The infection was caught during COVID-19 screening done on him in accordance with IGMH’s current protocol for all hospitalized patients.

It marks the first COVID-19 case to be identified in Addu, prompting the city to go into full lockdown, with health authorities operating under the assumption of a community spread within the city.

The new cases this Saturday increases total COVID-19 cases in Maldives to 785. 29 have since recovered, and three have died from complications.