“As per usual procedure, migrants arriving by boat are immediately quarantined for 14 days and tested,” the ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
“The migrants who are positive will continue to be isolated at the Ħal Far Initial Reception Centre and the rest will remain in quarantine and followed up.”
The migrants had issued a distress signal from their packed dinghy as it crossed the Mediterranean Sea headed for Europe on Sunday, but it took more than 30 hours for rescuers aboard an Armed Forces of Malta vessel to reach them.
At the peak of the pandemic, Malta closed its ports to all traffic including vessels carrying rescued migrants, some of whom were held on tourist boats until on-board unrest triggered them being admitted by the country.
The next largest Maltese cluster is one of 18 cases that were all linked to a party they attended.
Eighty-five of the 94 migrants had been tested so far, the Maltese health ministry said.
Nine of the 94 rescued migrants were still awaiting an examination, the ministry said, but swab tests for them were due to be issued on Tuesday night. They gave no further information about the migrants’ condition.
Infection Concerns
Non-governmental organizations, such as Sea Watch, who conduct civil search and rescue operations in the Central Mediterranean, have recently accused both Malta and the island’s close neighbor, Italy, of deliberately slowing down rescue missions in an effort to dissuade people from putting to sea.“This group arrived in Malta together and were in contact with very few other people before they were tested,” the health ministry said, playing down the likelihood of locals getting infected.
The discovery that so many of the group have the CCP virus, however, is likely to exacerbate concerns in both Malta and Italy that the new arrival of infected cases will undermine local efforts to eliminate the disease.
