Research Dean at the Maldives National University MNU Dr. Raheema Abduh Raheem says 1500 students and staff from the university have worked under the National Emergency Operations Center to combat the Covid-19 pandemic.
Addressing the media, Dr. Raheema said that the MNU has been involved in the work done by the NEOC since its operations began earlier this year.
She said that 1200 students and 300 staff from the university have worked at the NEOC at different capacities.
Dr. Raheema noted that MNU staff and students have taken part in the Rapid Response Team and have been actively taking Covid-19 samples from individuals while also offering training on contact tracing. S
he added that MNU personal have been involved in training staff from hospitals and health centers while also taking part in the different taskforces assembled during the crisis.
Highlighting the work by the university, Dr. Raheema said that MNU has been doing researches and developing models in collaboration with the HPA once NEOC began its contact tracing work. She said that the university has been monitoring the changes socioeconomic and mental health of individuals during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Dr. Raheema also said that the university was studying the effects of the crisis on the tourism sector and the ways to mitigate the losses and said that this work was assigned to the university by the parliament.
She explained that several government offices have assigned different studies to the university including the effects of the pandemic on Higher education, construction sector, and housing sector.
Dr. Raheema said the most critical study right now is the research on the spread of infection following the ease of the lockdown in the Male’ Area. She explained that high-risk groups and groups susceptible to the infection have been identified. She said that this includes frontline workers as well as workers employed under corporations such as WAMCO.
