By Nelson Manneh
Health authorities have yesterday informed this medium that five COVID-19 patients are currently on oxygen therapy.
The Gambia has on Wednesday 20th January 2021 registered twelve new cases of the deadly coronavirus, bringing the total number of COVID-19 cases ever confirmed in the country to three thousand nine hundred and fifty.
The median age of the new cases is 55.5. Seven out of the twelve newly confirmed cases did the test on account of being intending travellers who needed COVID-19 test certificates.
This is the 251st 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 seventy-five people under hotel quarantine and one hundred and twenty-three active cases.
Modou Njai the Director of Health Promotion and Education at the Ministry of Health said three hundred and forty-seven new laboratory test results were received from the Medical Research Council and the National Public Health Lab.
Of these, Director Njai said twelve new samples tested positive, representing a 3.5% positivity test rate. No new tests returned undetermined.
“Eight high-risk contacts of recently confirmed cases have been identified and their follow-up began in earnest, the follow-up for twenty has just been completed,” he noted.
He said no new COVID-19 patients got discharged from the treatment centres. Seventy-five people were newly taken into hotel quarantine and sixty-three were discharged.