30 people put in state quarantine over contact with 12th COVID-19 case

“30 people who had come into direct contact with the 12th COVID-19 case were put in mandatory state quarantine after they had been identified and tracked down,” said Cleopatra Jessurun, director at the Ministry of Health, on Friday. “It is not clear yet if the infection took place in Suriname or at Assisikriki in neighboring French Guiana where this person worked as a gold miner alongside other Surinamese nationals. A team of health workers left for Assisikriki in a helicopter and we will have more information after the weekend,” said the health director who explained that the team’s mission is to find out if there are more infected Surinamese nationals either in French Guiana or in Suriname. Rumors that are being spread on social media suggested that the 12th COVID0-19 case had been to the polls. Director Jessurun made it clear that these rumors are not true. “On May 25 he crossed the river to reach Suriname and he was the only one on the boat. When he arrived here, he took a taxi in Albina and came to the city with two other people. Around 11 p.m. he was home with his mother and the next day he went to a family doctor. Every time he travelled he wore a surgical mask and when he reached the clinic they talked to him through a window that had been covered with a plastic sheet. He did not come into contact with the other patients who were also at the clinic. The family doctor called 178 and we deployed a unit. He was tested and had to wait for the results but went to the barber without a surgical mask. The next day the results of the test came back positive so he was admitted to the ICU at the RKZ. His condition is currently stable,” said Jessurun who added that this is not a case of community spreading because the people who he had come into contact with are known and were immediately put in mandatory state quarantine. “If more than 30 people turn out to be infected we label them as cluster cases and when the team returns from Assisikriki with information that indicates that multiple people at the gold field are infected, we can conclude that community spreading took place there.” Health officials on Saturday indicated that 2 more people have tested positive for COVID-19 which means that Suriname currently has 14 COVID-19 cases.