A total of 38 Covid-19 infections have been detected from ‘Fiyavathi’, a children’s shelter located in Hulhumalé, since the first case was discovered earlier this month.

Speaking to press of Saturday night, the Health Emergency Operations Center (HEOC)’s spokesperson Dr. Nazla Rafeeq stated that the total cases include 18 children and 20 staff members.

Two of the new cases were discovered on Friday, after two in quarantine were tested due to symptoms. 80 contacts of the previously detected cases have been identified thus far.

Work is currently underway to collect samples for release testing for some of the contacts in quarantine, said Nazla.

The first case was detected in the children’s shelter on October 1, after samples that were collected from a staff member on September 30, returned positive for the infection. The employee was in charge of taking care of the children aged 10-13 years, all boys, who were quarantined afterward.

Further, the children were moved to another facility under the instructions of HEOC as well as the Health Protection Agency (HPA).

19 samples were taken and two samples, one of a caretaker and the other of a child, returned positive on October 4. The next day, random samples were collected as quarantined were children.

On October 6, 10 more cases were identified out of the quarantined individuals; three caretakers and seven children. Another caretaker is to have tested positive later according to HEOC.

Dr. Nazla noted that some of the contacts are considered to come under the high-risk category.

In addition, the Ministry of Gender, Family and Social Services also decided to move the caretakers and 26 children located on the floor where the contacts were quarantined, elsewhere, after informing the relevant institutions tasked with the responsibility of monitoring them.

HEOC assured that the required precautionary measures have been taken at the shelter, to slow the spread of the infection.