Maldives reported 44 new cases of the global Covid-19 pandemic on Friday.

Nightly statistics publicized by the Health Protection Agency (HPA) reveal that 40 cases were discovered from the greater Malé region and four cases from residential islands.

The new cases include 39 Maldivians and six foreigners.

With this development, the country’s coronavirus case count has risen to 10,398.

Friday’s cases were confirmed out of the 1,519 samples tested within the past 24 hours

Further, the public health authority also reported the lowest number of Covid-19 recoveries in days, at 26.

This means that the total number of coronavirus-stricken patients to have recovered has been pushed to 9,213.

Maldives currently has 1,144 active cases of the infection, out of which 79 patients remain hospitalized for treatment, same as Thursday.

The number of Covid-19 patients seeking treatment at isolation facilities has dropped to 516, from 573.

The pandemic has taken 34 lives in the Maldives thus far.

The government responded to the first ever case of community transmission in the greater Malé region by implementing a full lockdown on April 15 which saw case numbers die down within last weeks of the lockdown period.

Due to the improvement, authorities began easing the lockdown in phases on May 29. Upon entering the third phase of lockdown easing, case began spiraling once again.

The coronavirus has since spread to residential islands as well and despite having implemented a number of precautionary measures including a seven-hour curfew and vehicle movement restriction for nine hours, authorities remain resolute on avoiding a second lockdown across the capital region.