IGMH surpasses 20,000 COVID-19 tests

Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital (IGMH) has announced that it has so far conducted 20,000 PCR tests for COVID-19 in the Maldives.

The hospital thanked its laboratory staff and technicians for the milestone reached, in a tweet sent out. 

Firm determination and courage were being exhibited by IGMH lab staff for every single test processed, which required a lot of work including preparing the test reports for the tests, said the hospital.

Currently, there are three facilities where COVID-19 tests are processed. They are the laboratory of Maldives Police Service, IGMH, and ADK hospital. Out of the three, IGMH has the highest capacity for testing.

The government is also working to increase the testing capacity of the country altogether.

COVID-19 patients that require emergency treatment or ventilators are treated at IGMH’s DH11 facility in the Dharumavantha Hospital complex. Patients are also treated at the Tree Top Hospital in Hulhumale’.

The government also recently finished the construction of the COVID-19 village adjacent to the Tree Top Hospital. The COVID-19 village was also built to treat virus patients and has a capacity of 298 beds.

While the Maldives has now confirmed 1,773 cases of the virus, testing numbers for the country currently stands above 24,000. 453 individuals have made full recoveries from the virus while six have passed away. The most recent death from the virus was a Bangladeshi national who passed away today. 

The majority of the cases in the Maldives have been reported in the capital Male’ City and are mostly identified from the huge migrant population in the capital.

More than 900 Bangladeshi nationals have tested positive for the virus along with 186 Indian nationals, The number of Maldivians who tested positive for the virus currently stands at 563.