By Nelson Manneh
Health Authorities have Wednesday informed the media that The Gambia has registered one new COVID-19-related death, bringing the total number of deaths since March 2020, to one hundred and fifty-one.
The decedent was a 69-year-old man, who until his demise, was admitted at a COVID-19 treatment centre.
The country has also registered twenty-three new cases, bringing the total number of COVID-19 cases ever confirmed in the country to four thousand, seven hundred and thirty-five.
84% of the newly confirmed cases tested were intending travellers, while16% were ill and sought for healthcare due to suspicion of COVID-19. The median age of the new cases is 31.
This is the 272nd national situation report since the confirmation of the first case of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in The Gambia, on the 16th March 2020. The Gambia currently has fifty-six people in hotel quarantine and four hundred and seventy-three active cases.
Modou Njai, the Director of Health Promotion and Education at the Ministry of Health, said a total of seven hundred and twenty-nine new laboratory test results were received from the Medical Research Council and the National Public Health Lab.
Out of the two hundred and seventeen tests, Director Njai said twenty-three new samples tested positive, representing a 3.2 % positivity test rate.
“High (80% (4/5)) site-specific test positivity rate recorded at the Basse testing site. Ten high-risk contacts [of recently confirmed cases] were identified and their follow-up began in earnest,” he said.
He said ten COVID-19 patients were newly discharged from treatment centres and twenty got discharged at least 10 days from the day they tested positive, but evaded institutional isolation.
He said nine COVID-19 patients are currently on oxygen therapy.
