By Nelson Manneh
Health Authorities have Thursday informed this medium that one COVID-19 patient has absconded from one of the treatment centres.
No new COVID-19-related death was registered and the total number of deaths since March 2020 is one hundred and fifty-three.
The Gambia on Thursday 11th March 2021 also registered fifty-nine new cases, bringing the total number of COVID-19 cases ever confirmed in the country to four thousand eight hundred and fifty-one.
61% of these tested were intending travellers, 16% detected at the point of entries and 12% were ill and sought health care due to suspicion of COVID-19. The median age of the new cases is 38.
This is the 275th national situation report since the confirmation of the first case of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in The Gambia, on 16th March 2020. The Gambia currently has thirty-five people in hotel quarantine, four hundred and thirty active cases.
Modou Njai, the Director of Health Promotion and Education at the Ministry of Health, said a total of five hundred and seventy-seven new laboratory test results were received from the Medical Research Council and the National Public Health Lab.
Of these, Director Njai said fifty-nine new samples tested positive, representing a 10.2 % positivity test rate.
“Fifty-six high-risk contacts [of recently confirmed cases] were identified and their follow-up began in earnest. Sixteen COVID-19 patients were newly discharged from treatment centres, 49 got discharged at least 10 days from the day they tested positive but evaded institutional isolation,” he said.
He said eight COVID-19 patients are currently on oxygen therapy.
