Authorities find link between Hinmafushi rehab case and virus case in Male’

Health Protection Agency (HPA) epidemiologist Dr. Nazla Rafeeq, on Saturday, said the agency had established a link between one of the persons who tested positive for COVID-19 from the drug treatment and rehab center in K. Hinmafushi with a new case identified from  the capital Male’ City, making it a possible route for the spread of the disease within the rehab center.

HPA had picked up on the three cases within the Hinmafushi rehab center during active surveillance on the center on Friday. The agency had tested random samples from the center, three of which came back positive. They were samples taken from clients at the rehab center; two men and a woman.

At a National Emergency Operations Center press briefing on Saturday night, Dr. Nazla said that the rehab center had last accepted clients on April 13.

“The most recent clients to DTRCT had gone there on April 13. Four clients went there on that day. And prior to that, two on April 8, one on April 9, and four on April 12,” she said.

One of the people to test positive had been among the four who went to the rehab center on April 13.

“When we retraced the places visited by the fourth client who had gone to DTRCT on April 13,we identified a foreign national who tested positive today from one of the places the client visited. We believe this to be a possible route for the virus to spread there [to the rehab center], but we have yet to say this with certainty yet,” said Dr. Nazla.

She said that while the Hinmafushi rehab center had gone into lockdown on April 22, HPA had been tipped off that some of the workers at the rehab center native to Hinmafushi had continued to sneak in and out of the facility.

Dr. Nazla said the authorities had identified the workers in question.

“Two of them went to the health center to seek medical care. We have been informed that one went to get bandages changed on a regular basis. We have noticed that though the center had been under lockdown some workers who were native to the island had gone out and mingled with the local population unbeknownst to the management,” she said.