Health Ministry extends state of public health emergency

The Ministry of Health, on Sunday, announced the extension of the State of Public Health Emergency declared in Maldives due to the COVID-19 pandemic, until May 4.

Health Minister Ahmed Naseem stated that this extension was based on the advice given by the Director-General of Public Health Maimoona Aboobakuru, who highlighted that there still remains a severe threat of a national outbreak. Hence, Maldives need to take preventive measures.

Maldives declared its first-ever state of public health emergency on March 12, under Section 33 of the 7/2012 Public Health Act, over the COVID-19 pandemic for a period of 30 days.

It has been extended multiple times since then.

The country recently recorded a spike in COVID-19 cases, which has been increasing throughout the year, with several clusters found in capital Male’ as well as some southern islands and operational resorts.

Currently, the island nation records a total of 24,783 virus cases of which 3,061 are active cases, in addition to 21,646 recoveries and 67 deaths.