Male: A newborn, not even a month old, has tested positive for COVID-19.

While the Health Ministry’s COVID-19 Dashboard shows that Case 1041 is a newborn boy, details of the case was shared at Saturday night’s press conference at the National Emergency Operations Center (NEOC).

Dr. Nazla Rafeeq said that the baby’s samples were taken for testing after learning he had come into contact with a positive case; this individual is an indirect contact of another confirmed case who later tested positive for the virus as well.

She added that the baby had shown COVID-19 like symptoms.

While only the newborn was tested initially, samples have been taken from the mother as well.

This is the youngest child to have tested positive for coronavirus in the Maldives. While he tested positive on May 15, a seven-month-old baby tested positive on May 8.

27 children under 10 have tested positive for the virus in the country, including 12 under five.

International research shows that children and adolescents are just as likely to become infected as any other age group and can spread the disease but that "only around one percent of critical cases involved children, while deaths remain extremely rare".

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