By Ousainou J Sawaneh (Prince Ojee)
Quarantining is one of the ways the Gambia government using to fight against the deadly novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in The Gambia, since the first case was confirmed on 17th March 2020.
On the latest national situation report of 128th on 25th August 2020, Ministry of Health revealed 17 people were newly taken into quarantine adding that 278 new discharges were made.
Health Ministry revealed that 35 new cases registered, taking the total number of COVID-19 cases ever confirmed in the country to 2,743 adding that this represents a 19.7% test positivity rate (35 out of 178 total tests performed), “the median age of the new cases is 33 years (range: 3 to 94 years)”
The Ministry added that 27 new recoveries registered, bringing the cumulative number of recoveries, to date, to 638 (23% recovery rate)
“178 new laboratory test results received from MRCG and NPHL, of these, 19 (9 repeat and 10 new) tests returned indeterminant”
According to Ministry the bulk of the active cases are asymptomatic and are as such self-isolating at home pending the manifestation of symptoms.
The country currently has 31 people in quarantine, 2,012 active cases, 230 probable cases and a crude case-fatality ratio of 3.4%
