By Nelson Manneh
Health Authorities have on Thursday 14th January 2021 informed this medium that one COVID-19 patient has absconded from the Ndemban Treatment Center in Foni.
The Gambia has on the same day registered one new COVID-19 related death, bringing the total number of deaths recorded to one hundred and twenty-six.
The decedent was a 79-year-old woman who had comorbid conditions. A sample was taken from her for manifesting Covid-like symptoms, but she succumbed to the illness prior to the release of test results.
The country has also registered five new cases of the deadly coronavirus, bringing the total number of COVID-19 cases ever confirmed in the country to three thousand eight hundred and ninety.
One of the newly confirmed cases sought to be tested on account of being sick with flu-like symptoms, the remaining 4 (80%) were tested for being intending travellers who needed COVID-19 test certificates. The median age of the new cases is 32.
This is the 245th national situation report since the confirmation of the first case of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in The Gambia, on the 16th March 2020. The Gambia currently has no person in hotel quarantine. It has eighty-one active cases.
Modou Njai the Director of Health Promotion and Education at the Ministry of Health said three hundred and eighty-eight new laboratory test results were received from the National Public Health Lab and Medical Research Council.
Of these, he said five new samples tested positive, representing a 1.3% positivity test rate and fifteen new tests returned undetermined.
He said five high-risk contacts of recently confirmed cases have been identified and their follow-up began in earnest.
Njai said two new COVID-19 patients got discharged and no one was newly taken into hotel quarantine.