By Nelson Manneh
The Gambia has over the weekend registered one new CoVID-19 related death, taking the total number of deaths since March 2020 to one hundred and sixty-one.
The decedent was a 66-year-old known diabetic who later developed severe COVID-19-related pneumonia and was thus admitted at one of the treatment centres.
The country has also registered thirty-nine new cases of the deadly disease, bringing the total number of COVID-19 cases ever confirmed in the country to five thousand two hundred and fifty-five.
35% of these tested for reasons of travelling, 26.5% being ill seeking health due to suspicion of COVID-19, 23.5% detected at POEs, 5.9% routine respiratory disease surveillance systems and 8.8% contacted a case. The median age of the new cases is 40.
This is the 283rd 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 forty-three people in hotel quarantine and two hundred and nineteen active cases.
Modou Njai, the Director of Health Promotion and Education at the Ministry of Health, said a total of four hundred and fifty-four new laboratory test results were received from the Medical Research Council and the National Public Health Lab.
Of these, he said thirty-nine new samples tested positive, representing an 11 % positivity test rate.
“No high-risk contacts of recently confirmed cases were identified. Three COVID-19 patients were newly discharged from treatment centres, 42 got discharged at least 10 days from the day they tested positive but evaded institutional isolation,” he said
Director Njai said five COVID-19 patients are currently on oxygen therapy.