Health Protection Agency HPA says 149 individuals had tested positive for COVID-19 in the Maldives on Monday as the pandemic numbers continue to rise in the country.
In its daily case update via Twitter, HPA said that out of the 149 had tested positive on Monday, 120 cases were confirmed from the Greater Male' Area, and that 18 were reported from operational resorts.
HPA also said that 4 COVID-19 cases were reported from inhabited islands and that 7 cases were reported from islands under development.
The Agency noted that this takes the total number of cases reported in the Maldives since March 2020 to a staggering 22,662.
HPA highlighted that 20,142 people have since recovered from the illness and that 2,447 people remained as active cases of COVID-19. HPA added that 90 COVID-19 patients remained hospitalized for further treatment.
The COVID-19 global pandemic has killed 66 people in the Maldives including 59 locals and 7 foreigners.
The continuous rise in cases comes as the Director-General of Public Health Maimoona Abubakar said on Monday that the Agency is looking to ease the restrictive measures taken against the pandemic for the month of Ramadan, now around the corner.
She said this while speaking at the hearing conducted by the parliament's economic committee earlier today.
Maimoona said that the ease of measures is dependent upon the number of individuals being vaccinated and that the Agency is working to vaccinate as many people as possible.
She insisted that the Agency is looking to give any ease possible and it was monitoring the spread and control of the infection. She noted that many measures have been taken to control the pandemic here in the Maldives and extending the State of Public Health Emergency in the country had given a legal boost to the agency's work of defeating the pandemic.
She also said the measures taken by the HPA are in place with the recommendation of technical experts and that these measures are not targetted to bring additional hardships to anyone or entity.
