Update on COVID-19 |25 March 2020
Dr Louange (Photo: Jude Morel)
‘Stay positive and work together,’ population urged
The Seychellois public are being urged to stay positive and continue to work together as the country does its utmost to contain the COVID-19 pandemic.
The plea comes amid the comforting news that Seychelles has not recorded any new cases of coronavirus/ COVID-19 in the last five days as the number of positive cases stands at seven since Thursday last week.
At a press conference given yesterday at 2.30pm, the chief executive of the Health Care Agency, Dr Danny Louange, gave the latest update on the COVID-19 in Seychelles. “We still have 7 positive cases – three Seychellois and four expatriates. One foreigner, as announced before, is critically ill. His condition deteriorated a little bit on Monday but now his situation has reached a plateau. We are treating him for lungs problems and we are monitoring him closely. We have also two individuals in the isolation centre at the Family Hospital who have been admitted for further investigation. We also have one individual in the isolation centre on La Digue. 51 individuals are also on home quarantine that we are monitoring closely.”
Dr Louange also noted that there are currently 11 people in quarantine at the Perseverance Coast Guard facility and twelve individuals at the Maison de Football. “Since Monday night, we are using Berjaya Beau Vallon Bay Resort & Casino and we have 56 people who have been transferred to the hotel for quarantine. From now on part of Berjaya Beau Vallon will be used as a quarantine centre following an arrangement with the management of the hotel and the government of Seychelles. We thank them for agreeing to use the hotel as a quarantine centre as this will assist Seychelles in fighting the virus. We also thank all our partners, especially the Constance Ephelia hotel who voluntarily agreed to take on board the 150 tourists that were at Berjaya Beau Vallon.”
Dr Louange also stated that all persons on quarantine at the Maison de Football and Perseverance Coast Guard will be moved to Berjaya Beau Vallon for follow up.
Even with all the preparedness, there are still challenges said Dr Louange. “We are having issues mainly with the people who are quarantined at home. We are urging these people to respect the rules given by the Ministry of Health. We are working closely with the police and if these people do not follow the guidelines, they will be put in the quarantine centre.”
Dr Louange seized the opportunity to thank all the tourism stakeholders and other partners such as SCAA, Air Seychelles who helped them facilitate the smooth move of the passengers from Mauritius to the quarantine centre. He reassured the population that the people in quarantine are receiving the basic needs and facilities and family members who want to bring something for the patients can bring these to a designated centre for an orderly distribution.
“It has been five days now since we are not registering any new case and we are blessed so far. We have to keep praying that the situation stays the same. We continue to ask the people of Seychelles to stay positive and work together. It is difficult to predict what will happen next. What we are doing in the background is that we establish a Public Health Emergency Operation Centre. This structure is working fairly well with the collaboration of the World Health Organisation (WHO) and DRDM. On Monday a technical advisor from WHO came to join our group and now we are bracing ourselves for any eventuality. This we will continue to do and we will update our stocks, revise our guidelines and procedures and be ready for whatever comes. We actually received two consignments of materials yesterday and more are coming. We also have enough storage space for our materials,” concluded Dr Louange.
Vidya Gappy