Male: Maldives' Health Protection Agency (HPA) on Thursday announced that nine more people had tested positive for COVID-19 in Male, taking the total number of positive cases to 75 in the capital city. The archipelago has so far reported 95 COVID-19 cases.

According to HPA, the nine new cases are of four Maldivian nationals and five Bangladeshi nationals.  All of them have been moved to an isolation facility.  The HPA has taken 4,696 samples for testing so far.  Results remain pending on 383 samples, which include 246 samples taken from workers at Kuredu Island Resort, which had reported the first virus case in the Maldives in early March. 

Male city, which identified its first virus case on April 15, has since seen a surge. The government has imposed a lockdown on the greater Male region to curb the spread of the virus.