The Gambia has Tuesday registered two new COVID-19 related deaths, bringing the total number of deaths since March 2020, to one hundred and fifty.
The decedents were 78-year-old hypertensive woman and a neonate (23 days old) who were until their demise admitted at COVID-19 treatment centres with severe symptoms.
The country has also registered twenty-one new cases of the disease bringing the total number of COVID-19 cases confirmed in the country to four thousand seven hundred and twelve. The median age of the new cases is 45.
This is the 271st national situation report since the confirmation of the first case of the coronavirus in The Gambia, on the 16th March 2020. The Gambia currently has fifty-eight people in hotel quarantine and four hundred and eighty-one active cases.
Modou Njai, the Director of Health Promotion and Education at the Ministry of Health, said a total of eight hundred and ninety-six new laboratory test results were received from the Medical Research Council and the National Public Health Lab.
Of these, Director Njai said twenty-one new samples tested positive, representing a 2.3 % positivity test rate. He said high (80% (4/5)) site-specific positivity test rate was recorded at the Basse testing site.
“Sixteen high-risk contacts of recently confirmed cases were identified and their follow-up began in earnest, while twenty-two COVID-19 patients were newly discharged from treatment centres. Sixteen got discharged at least 10 days from the day they tested positive, but evaded institutional isolation,” he said. Njai said 10 COVID-19 patients are currently on oxygen therapy.
