Two cases of COVID-19 identified from Gulf Food Expo

National Emergency Operations Center (NEOC) medical officer, Dr. Ibrahim Afzal has said that two cases of COVID-19 were identified from the Gulf Food Expo held in Dubai UAE last February.

The Gulf Food Expo was held from February 16- 20, and NEOC medical officer Dr. Ibrahim Afzal had requested anyone that visited the expo and returned to the Maldives to report to the authorities.

Speaking in a news conference tonight, Dr. Afzal stated that the two cases identified in the Maldives from the Gulf Food Expo were different from the other cases identified in the country. There were differences when it came to how the infection spread inside the body and how symptoms are exhibited, said the doctor.

“Two cases were identified from the UAE Food Expo. Differences noticed from the two cases regarding history and progression of the virus led us to check whether similar symptoms were noticed from others who visited the expo.” Said Dr. Afzal when asked if cases of the virus were identified from the visitors to the expo in the UAE.

Two possible scenarios!

Dr. Afzal stated that there were two possible scenarios.

The first one was that the individuals had returned from Dubai while being infected with another disease, recovered from that disease, and were later infected with COVID-19. The immune system of the body would be weakened after being infected with a virus and symptoms could sometimes be different when infected with another disease, said the doctor.

The second scenario was that the individuals were infected with COVID-19 when they returned from the virus, recovered and later, faced a resurgence of COVID-19 again.

“For instance, (the first scenario) they may be infected with another disease when they returned and recovered. Most of the time, the immune system would be weakened after being infected with a disease. If the individual was then infected with COVID-19, then the infection of the two diseases could be what we are seeing. Maybe a long term effect of the disease. This may be a scenario, a possibility.” Said Dr. Afzal.

After the press conference, journalists of Sun requested the doctor to elaborate on the case.

The doctor stated that usually, it took 14 days to recover from the virus. However, in this case, the individuals were exhibiting symptoms of other viral illnesses when they returned from Dubai. It was not clear whether they were infected with COVID-19 due to the symptoms being similar to other viral infections.

“We noticed from their (medical) history that they had symptoms of illness when they returned, but had recovered between the time period before falling ill again. They tested positive for COVID-19 on the second time they fell ill,”

“The question being posed with that, whether they had not fully recovered from the virus after such a long period. Another way we suspect is that they were infected with another viral infection from Dubai, were infected with COVID-19 before they fully recovered from the first infection.” Said Dr. Afzal.

The authorities now wished to see whether anyone else that visited the expo also exhibited similar symptoms. Anti-Body tests and serology tests would be conducted on the individuals to see if they had been infected with COVID-19.

No information to suggest index case

“It does not seem likely right now that the virus was spread in Male’ from the cases from the Expo.” Said Dr. Afzal when asked if there was a chance that the index case for the community spread originated from the Expo. He added that there was a chance that this could happen as the authorities continue on with collecting information.

“Not included in the clusters. We do not have information that suggests that the primary focus on the spread (community spread of Male’ City) is from the direct contacts of the returnees from the Expo,”

“However, as we go on exploring if such a direction or information is received, we can then say that the virus came from this direction (Dubai Expo) originally.” Said Dr. Afzal.

He stressed that the information was not relevant or important to control the spread of the virus in the capital right now. The doctor also did not specify whether the two cases from the Expo belonged to a specific cluster.

The country has now confirmed 250 cases of the virus so far and a total of 20 clusters. However, the index case has still not been identified by the authorities.