Malta, investigations into the death of 5 year old child positive COVID

LA VALLETTA (MALTA) (ITALPRESS/MNA) – Maltese Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Health Chris Fearne confirmed this afternoon that a 5 year old Maltese girl who died within 24 hours of being taken to Mater Dei Hospital last Saturday was tested positive for COVID-19 after her death.
The Maltese authorities are already investigating the death which is subject to an inquiry and health authorities are carrying out further tests, including an autopsy to verify whether the death was Covid related.
Minister Fearne urged for caution and respect to the privacy of the young girl’s family. However, he said that the young girl died on Saturday afternoon after developing a fever the day before. She was admitted to Mater Dei Hospital in a critical state and died sometime later after being put on a ventilator. He added that in the sake of transparency, authorities will keep the public informed about the autopsy results.
Minister Fearne explained that while the girl had tested negative for Covid-19 upon her admission to hospital, but a second test was “mildly reactive” to the virus. Fearne says that the mildly reactive test result showed that the person came in contact with the virus or contracted the virus in the past.
He added that nobody in the girl’s family was tested positive. The minister said the five -year-old girl was healthy and did not have any other medical conditions.
The Deputy Prime Minister said that although the vaccines do not provide 100% cover from Covid, the results are encouraging given that at the moment only one person is in intensive care unit at Mater Dei Hospital.
Fearne said the highly contagious Delta variant is present in Malta as it is in other countries. He remarked that Malta is close to achieving an 85% herd immunity needed to mitigate the spread of the Delta variant.
The local health authorities confirmed announced 154 new cases of Covid-19 in the last 24 hours bringing the total of active cases to 782. Minister Fearne said that 15% of active cases are Maltese residents. Moreover, 90% of all active cases are non-vaccinated.
Justifying the ban on unvaccinated travellers which starts from tomorrow, the Maltese Deputy Prime Minister declared that Malta is only doing what is best to protect the public health. Yesterday, the European Commission expressed its concerns over what it described as a discriminatory rule and against the freedom of movement within the EU countries.
(ITALPRESS).

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