The government has revealed that 22 samples collected from the prison facility in Maafushi island of Kaafu atoll, had tested negative for Covid-19.

This was revealed by the Minister of Home Affairs, Sheikh Imran Abdulla who joined the National Emergency Operations Center (NEOC) press briefing on Monday afternoon to provide the latest Covid-19 updates to the people.

He noted that a total of 38 samples have been collected from both convicts and prison personnel at the facility thus far, as part of the work being carried out to identify, control and contain the spread of the pandemic in the Maldives.

As such, the samples were collected in cooperation with the Maldives Correctional Service and the Covid-19 task force, as part of the authorities’ random sampling operation.

These samples were collected from 15 convicts and 23 prison personnel out of which 22 samples have tested negative thus far and the remaining results are pending.

The Health Protection Agency (HPA) had earlier initiated a “community spread survey” through which authorities discovered that a community transmission was present three weeks before the first case of community transmission was confirmed in the Maldives capital, Malé City.

This in turn instigated an operation where frontline workers began collecting random samples from individuals in the region. Random samples were previously collected from individuals consulting at flu clinics and regional hospitals across the Maldives.