Maldives' top health official discharged from hospital, doing well

National Emergency Operations Center (NEOC) spokesperson Mabrouq Azeez, on Saturday, said the Director General of Public Health Maimoona Aboobakuru was hospitalized for a short period of time on Friday but has since been discharged and is doing well.

Mabrouq spoke to Sun on Saturday following reports of Maldives’ top health offcial's hospitalization.

He said that Maimoona isn’t suffering from any serious health complication, and has been discharged from the hospital.

“DG is doing well. It isn’t related to COVID. She was hospitalized for a short period of time yesterday and was discharged,” said Mabrouq.

He declined to comment on the reason for Maimoona’s hospitalization to protect her privacy.

Maldives identified its first coronavirus case on March 7, and declared a state of public health emergency over the pandemic four days later on March 11.

Maimoona is at the forefront of Maldives’ effort to curb the spread of an outbreak of the new coronavirus in Maldives, empowered by law to make decisions regarding restrictive measures to curb the outbreak during the state of public health emergency.

While coronavirus cases had initially been restricted to resorts and safaris, and later quarantine facilities holding inbound travelers, Male’ City identified its first coronavirus case on April 15, prompting a city-wide lockdown and a nationwide ban on nonessential travel.

Maldives began relaxing its lockdown following a drop in daily infections in the end of May.

Maldives has 2,150 confirmed coronavirus cases, out of which 1,769 patients have recovered and eight have died from complications.

34 percent of the 2,150 coronavirus cases in the country are Maldivians, while the remaining 66 percent are foreign nationals. 1,134 people – making for 52 percent of total coronavirus cases – are Bangladeshis. The rest of the coronavirus cases include 740 Maldivians, 200 Indians, 42 Nepalese, and 12 Sri Lankans and 11 Italians.

The recovery rate stands at 82 percent, and the active cases have dropped to 371.