With the covid situation in Maldives improving, the state of public heath emergency has being lifted.
The announcement was made by President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih in his address to the nation on Sunday.
Maldives had its first case of Covid reported on 7th March 2020. Health Minister Abdulla Ameen declared a state of public health emergency on March 12, 2020 to take precautionary measures against the pandemic in the Maldives.
Announcing the lifting of the state of public health emergency, the President said that there wasn’t a single family in the Maldives that had not felt the impact of COVID-19. He said that there are numerous Maldivians who suffer indirectly from the virus till to this day.
“The Maldives has so far loss the lives of 297 people from the virus,” said the President.
He said that precautionary measures against COVID-19 were taken in the Maldives early. It was because of the swift and early decisions to implement effective measures that Maldives became one of the first countries in the world to manage in the control of the outbreak and also restart economic and social activities.
“The Maldives, like other countries in the world, aims to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic by protecting people at risk of the virus and reducing the number of deaths. And to monitor the situation of the virus to the extent that services can be provided without interruption due to COVID-19,” said the President.
In his speech, the President noted that a genetic sequence testing system has been established in the Maldives to identify the type of covid-19 virus that is spreading in the country.
The President said that many countries are still looking at COVID-19 as a scourge, and that it is therefore important to be prepared to take action in the event of a new outbreak of the virus.
“In this regard, the Ministry of Health will continue to formulate a national strategy and action plan for responding to COVID-19 in the future,” said President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih.
The declaration of a state of public health emergency in 2020 had marked the first time for the provision on the Public Health Act to be invoked, since the Act’s enactment in 2012.
Health Ministry has released a declaration signed by the Health Minister Ahmed Naseem, “I, with the powers vested in me under the aforementioned [Public Health] Act, hereby announce the decision to lift the state of public health emergency declared nationwide from March 12, 2020, effective March 13, 2022.”
