National Emergency Operations Centre (NEOC) confirmed that six ventilators, transportable from location to location, were procured by the state for the treatment of COVID-19 patients arrived on Sunday.
Speaking at NEOC’s media briefing, President’s Office’s Communications Undersecretary Mabrouq Abdul Azeez stated that the number of ventilators in the Maldives is currently 97, of which any available ones at the time will be used for COVID-19 patients.
The state formerly revealed that efforts were underway to procure 151 ventilators worth MVR 56 million. The six transportable ventilators that arrived on Sunday were part of this deal.
According to Mabrouq 18 of the remaining ventilators will arrive around Wednesday, while 20 more will be received on Tuesday next week.
Moreover, the state is also attempting to procure 10 transportable ventilators and 65 ventilators for Intensive Case Units (ICU) through the World Health Organisation (WHO), costing MVR 35 million. The state has already made an advance payment covering 75 per cent of this cost.
As the number of positive cases increases daily with the COVID-19 outbreak in capital Male’, the state is expediting measures to increase the health sector capacity to tackle the situation.
Maldives’ first confirmed case of COVID-19 from the capital city, Male’ was recorded on April 15, involving a local woman who presented to the flu clinic in Malé after developing coronavirus-like symptoms. At present, the country has not identified an index patient for the outbreak.
As of now, Maldives records 52 confirmed and 36 active cases of COVID-19, with a total of 16 recoveries. Of the above, a total of 31 positive cases were found in the capital city Male’, one of the most densely populated areas in the world.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has classified the spread of COVID-19 as a global pandemic. The novel coronavirus has infected over 2.4 million people and claimed over 165,069 lives around the world. However, out of those infected, more than 617,023 people have recovered.
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Source URL: Google News
