Cyprus starts testing migrants at centers for COVID-19

Cyprus has begun screening 10 per cent of migrants confined at the country's two migrant reception centres for COVID-19, a government official said on Thursday.

Cypriot Interior Ministry senior official Loizos Michael told The Associated Press that health care workers this week began carrying out tests on just over 100 migrants.

Michael said that, so far, there have been no confirmed cases of COVID-19 among migrants who were confined at the centers in line with a strict, countrywide lockdown.

The official said the migrants' confinement will end in sync with a May 21 lifting on all restrictions on movement if the COVID-19 infection rate remains at the current, minimal level.

Cyprus has received some 3,000 asylum-seekers since the start of the year, with most arriving before the lockdown came into effect in late March.

The Cypriot government says a spike in migrant arrivals in the past few years has ranked the country among the EU member states with the highest number of asylum applications relative to its population size.

Meanwhile, the executive director of the Cyprus-based Thalassaemia International Federation called on Cypriot authorities to work together to identify migrants afflicted with the genetic disorder who could be more at risk if they contract the coronavirus.

On the eve of International Thalassaemia Day, Dr Androulla Eleftherou told the Associated Press that health authorities need to immediately register the "hopefully few" migrants who have the genetic disorder so that Cyprus' successful efforts in containing the coronavirus' spread so far are maintained.

Cyprus, with a population of around 880,000, to date counts almost 900 confirmed coronavirus cases and 15 deaths as a direct result of virus infection.