National Emergency Operation Centre (NEOC) has stopped conducting COVID-19 tests on elderly people who are bed-ridden.
Speaking at the daily press briefing, Spokesperson of NEOC Mohamed Mabrook Azeeez said the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) had initially decided to test 350 samples of bed-ridden elderly people in the Maldives as part of the random sampling carried out to identify the level of community transmission of COVID-19 in the country. However, Mabrook revealed TAG decided to lower the number to 170 due to the reservations of families in obtaining the samples. He added 105 samples were tested from bed-ridden elderly individuals, before TAG decided to stop testing them.
NEOC began testing samples of random elderly citizens in order to detect the disease at an early stage and begin treatment. NEOC revealed one sample obtained from a bed-ridden elderly individual had tested positive for COVID-19.