The Maldives government on Tuesday, 17 March 2020, announced its decision to temporarily ban arrivals from both Malaysia and United Kingdom.
The official spokesperson on COVID-19 developments in Maldives, Mr Mabrouk Abdul Azeez on Tuesday during a press conference confirmed the decision will be implemented from Thursday, 19 March onward for UK arrivals.
He further added Malaysian arrivals will temporarily be banned from entrance at 18:00hrs from Tuesday onward.
While Maldives government has decided on temporarily banning arrivals from the said countries, one of the COVID-19 positive cases discovered from the island nation include a UK national.
Earlier the island nation's government imposed temporary travel restrictions and prohibited arrivals on China, Iran, Italy, Bangladesh along with two provinces of South Korea while Spain, Germany and two regions of France were added to the list recently.
Meanwhile the Malaysian government ordered precautionary steps under their "Movement Control Order" commencing from 18 March until 31 March 2020.
The steps include temporarily prohibiting foreigners from entering the country as well as restricting out-bound travelers from Malaysia. Additionally, Malaysian national who fly in from abroad will be subjected to a health check-up as well as a 14-day quarantine period.
Maldives has confirmed a total of 13 positive cases of COVID-19, all discovered from foreigners.
