Jamaica has recorded its first Covid-19-related death as it confirms 15 confirmed cases of the virus.
A 79-year-old male from the parish of Clarendon, whose travel history includes New York, and who had diabetes and hypertension, Jacqueline Bisasor McKenzie, Chief Medical Officer, announced this afternoon. To date, six test results are outstanding.
The patient was presented to the Lionel town hospital on March 16th with Symptoms. He was in isolation in Mandeville but later died at about 3 pm while being transferred to the University Hospital of the West Indies, UHWI.
Permanent Secretary of @themohwgovjm: "If we didn’t prevent with quarantine IF The persons WERE moving outside the zone we wouldn’t have been able to isolate AND find the cases. If we want to contain we have to main the robustness of what we are doing" #JACovid19
— Dr. Chris Tufton (@christufton) March 18, 2020
Jamaica has approximately 2500 test kits and we are ordering additional test kits, according to Prime Minister Andrew Holness. “There is no issue in relation to our capacity to test for Covid-19 at this time,” he added in a tweet.
We have approximately 2500 test kits and we are ordering additional test kits. There is no issue in relation to our capacity to test for Covid-19 at this time. pic.twitter.com/eHdJzF8hwo
— Andrew Holness (@AndrewHolnessJM) March 18, 2020
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Labour and Social Security has been delivering welfare packages to families in the quarantined communities and to date over 900 packages have been delivered. These packages also include hygiene products. MLSS has enough packages of food for delivery.
This story is developing…
