More than 10% of the capital’s inhabitants were infected with the Omicron variant in one week. The country had so far not identified any local transmission of the virus.
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It was one of the last countries in the world to be spared from Covid-19. The Marshall Islands declared a state of “sanitary catastrophe” in the face of an explosion of Covid-19 cases in the capital Majuro on Monday (August 15th).
Nearly 2,800 people were infected in one week by the Omicron variant in the city of 22,500 inhabitants. The epidemic continues “to gain strength”warned the Minister of Health, the number of cases having doubled between Saturday and Sunday. “Almost 75% of people tested are positive, which is an incredibly high rate”added the official, who announced that “we are preparing for the most difficult phase of the epidemic now in Majuro”.
In total, the country has recorded 3,000 positive cases and three deaths for a population of 42,000 inhabitants. The President of the Marshall Islands, David Kabua, signed a “state of health disaster” to allow the government to have access to emergency funding, Friday August 12.
Among the possible explanations for these contaminations, suspicions turn to the recent relaxation of quarantine rules and border closures, which the government had planned to abandon completely on October 1. Foreign public health agencies are to send aid and health professionals in the coming days, according to the Minister of Health.