Virus patient in Uligan being moved to isolation facility on a seaplane

The H. A. Uligan resident who tested positive for COVID-19 on Sunday is being moved to an isolation facility.

Uligan Council president Ahmed Muaz Mohamed told Sun this Monday that a seaplane was on its way to the island to transport the patient.

Muaz said the condition of the patient was stable, but that the emergence of a virus case in Uligan had sparked fear among its residents.

The patient in Uligan had recently returned to the island following a trip to the capital Male’ City, where virus cases have risen to 31, in the five short days since it identified its first case, on April 15.

Muaz said the patient had been in self-isolation since returning to the island, and had not ventured outside.

The case in Uligan marks the first time for a virus case to emerge in a residential island outside of the capital.

Uligan is currently under lockdown, along with six other islands in northern Maldives where the boat the patient travelled on made stops to.

National Emergency Operations Center has announced that 131 contacts have been traced so far.

52 people have tested positive for COVID-19 in Maldives, 16 of whom have recovered, and two of whom are outside the country. 17 new cases were identified on Sunday; the patient from Uligan, and 14 Bangladeshi nationals and two Indian nationals in Male’.

Of the 16 cases in Male’, 13 Bangladeshi patients are employees of Lily Enterprises and live in a shared accommodation. They are linked with the existing cluster linked to patient 27, a 36-year-old Maldivian woman who is employed at the wholesale department of the same company.

Meanwhile, the two Indian patients are technicians employed by Bright Brothers who make house calls to repair air condition systems. They are linked with the existing cluster linked with patient 28, a 47-year-old Maldivian man. The two had been asymptomatic, but had been tested because they were direct contacts.

The 17th new case was a Bangladeshi national who was tested after presenting to a flu clinic. Authorities have yet to establish a link between the patient and any other existing clusters.