Kulhudhufushi Regional Hospital says two more individuals have tested positive for Filariasis from the Northern City.
This takes the total number of Filariasis cases found in Kulhudhufushi has now risen to 19.
Speaking to 'The Press', a Media Official at Kulhudhufushi Regional Hospital Mohamed Moosa said that the hospital was conducting screening tests and that they identified the two cases during the screening.
He further said that if new cases are found during the screening process, the hospital begins treatment without waiting for the confirmatory tests.
Moosa also said that right now the authorities were just screening contacts of previous positive cases and that they would conduct testing within the island population too.
He noted that all 19 individuals who tested positive for Failariasis are doing fine and that none of the individuals have shown the symptoms of the serious disease.
The original 17 cases were detected at a health screening in the Northern city targeted for migrant workers on the occasion of World Aids Day.
Filariasis is a parasitic disease caused by an infection with roundworms of the Filarioidea type. These are spread by blood-feeding insects such as black flies and mosquitoes. They belong to the group of diseases called helminthiases.
The Maldives last reported a case of Filariasis back in 2004 and a survey in 2008 revealed that the disease has been eradicated from the Maldives.
In 2016, Maldives was validated by the World Health Organization as one of only two of the nine endemic countries in the South East Asia Region to have successfully eliminated lymphatic filariasis.
