It is too early to consider a strategy for exiting the coronavirus lockdown, health officials in Maldives warned Saturday as they moved to conduct surveillance testing to identify the magnitude of the coronavirus outbreak in the Indian Ocean tourist paradise.

Health minister Abdulla Ameen told reporters that the current measures were “beginning to work”, but “we haven’t reached the point where we could lift the lockdown in the next four days.”

The 14-day lockdown in capital Male and its suburbs of Hulhumale and Villimale came into effect on April 17 after the first community transmission cases were detected in the city.

Asked during the government’s daily briefing when the current social distancing measures could be lifted, Director General of Public Health Maimoona Abu Bakr said the lockdown has enabled her team to trace contacts of the positive cases.

The lockdown has also proven effective at preventing the virus from spreading to the rest of the archipelago of 1,190 islands, she said.

Meanwhile, minister Ameen said a sentinel surveillance programme has been launched to determine the extent of the outbreak.

Sentinel testing will focus on areas or groups of people in Male as well as selected islands that are at risk of a spread without any links to already identified cases.

“Our surveillance tests have already identified cases with no direct links with previously identified patients,” the minister said.

Health Protection Agency (HPA) said 11 new cases from Male and one from the island of Narudhoo in Shaviyani atoll were detected Saturday, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the 6.8 square kilometre capital city to 123 and the national tally to 141.

Saturday saw the second case outside Male, as the captain of a boat that travelled to Narudhoo from the capital tested positive. The island is in lockdown and authorities have urged everyone that travelled on the boat on April 15 and 16 to report.

The first outside the capital was detected last week after a person that travelled to the island of Uligan in Haa Alif atoll from Male tested positive. The island is still in lockdown for contact tracing.

The confirmed cases in the country include 67 Maldivians, 48 Bangladeshis, nine Indians and two Sri Lankans.

Authorities managed to mitigate the spread of the virus and the Covid-19 respiratory disease it causes amongst the Maldives’ citizens and residents early on by closing the Indian Ocean tourist paradise’s borders, earning praise from the World Health Organisation.

But the disease is now spreading rapidly, especially within the large migrant worker community in capital Male. Authorities have ramped up relocating workers from the cramped up dormitories in one of the world’s most densely populated cities to temporary accommodation units.

An estimated 63,000 foreign nationals work in the Maldives illegally out of a migrant worker population close to 145,000.

Foreign workers in the Maldives, predominantly Bangladeshi and Indian men, are subjected to practices indicative of forced labour, including fraudulent recruitment, confiscation of identity and travel documents, withholding or non-payment of wages, and debt bondage.

As most migrant workers live in extremely poor conditions, a widespread outbreak amongst them could lead to large virus clusters, overwhelming the country’s already under staffed and strained healthcare system and making it harder for authorities to contain the spread of the virus.

On March 8, Maldives reported its first cases of the novel coronavirus, as two hotel employees tested positive for Covid-19 at a luxury resort in the archipelago.

Eighteen more cases — all foreigners working or staying resorts and liveaboard vessels except five Maldivians who had returned from abroad — were later identified.

A six-case cluster of locals, detected in capital Male on April 15, confirmed community transmission of the coronavirus. Several more clusters have since been identified, bringing the total number of confirmed case in the Maldives to 141.

No deaths have been reported and 16 have made full recoveries.

The Maldives announced a state of public health emergency on March 12, the first such declaration under a recent public health protection law.

The public health emergency declaration has allowed the government to introduce a series of unprecedented restrictive and social distancing measures, including stay-at-home orders in capital Male and its suburbs, a ban on inter-island transport and public gatherings across the country, and a nationwide closing of government offices, schools, colleges and universities.

Non-essential services and public places in the capital such as gyms, cinemas and parks have also been shut.

Restaurants and cafes in the capital have been asked to stop dine-in service and switch to takeaway and delivery.

A nationwide shutdown of all guesthouses, city hotels and spa facilities located on inhabited islands is also in effect.

The coronavirus outbreak has hit the Maldivian economy hard, as travel restrictions and other preventive measures affect the country’s lucrative tourism industry, which contributes the bulk of the island nation’s state revenue and foreign reserves.

Before the pandemic, the government had been bullish about tourism prospects, targeting two million, high-spending holidaymakers this year after last year’s record 1.7 million.

However, tourist arrivals saw a year-over-year decline of 22.8 per cent in the first 10 days of March. Officials say the number of tourist arrivals to the Maldives could drop by half in 2020.

All international airlines have suspended scheduled operations to the Maldives, as the island nation enforced a blanket suspension of on-arrival visa in late March in a bid to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Even before the visa suspension, the Maldives had closed its borders to arrivals from some of the worst-hit countries, including mainland China, Italy, Bangladesh, Iran, Spain, the United Kingdom, Malaysia and Sri Lanka. Visitors from three regions of Germany (Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia and Baden-Württemberg), two regions of France (Île-de-France and Grand Est) and two regions of South Korea were also banned from entering the country.

All direct flights to and from China, Italy, South Korea and Iran were also cancelled.

Cruise ships and foreign yachts were also banned from docking at any of the country’s ports.

With arrival numbers falling and the visa suspension in effect, several resorts across the Maldives had been closed.

Tourism has been the bedrock of the Maldives’ economic success. The $5 billion-dollar economy grew by 6.7 per cent in 2018 with tourism generating 60 per cent of foreign income.

However, the government is at present projecting a possible 13 per cent economic contraction this year — an estimated $778 million hit.

Photo: Avas Online