More professional staff is being added to the contact tracing and case management teams to deal with the backlog in cases, the Ministry of Health has confirmed.

This newsroom reached out to the ministry to ask about the backlog the teams are facing, after three workers confirmed that the contact tracing team is nine days behind in reaching out to secondary contacts. The newsroom also asked about plans to increase the staff of the teams to cope with the soaring number of cases.

The ministry responded that “13 nurses joined the contact tracing/case management team” on Monday “and a further 6 doctors have joined the team” on Tuesday.

“Additional professional staff is being deployed to shorten the average period of 4 days for this secondary contact”, it said.

Deputy Minister Chris Fearne spoke about the growth of the contact tracing team recently, saying that more workers are being added in order to reach secondary cases faster.

Fearne said that cases are being contacted within 24 hours of a positive result, which the Ministry of Health echoed when contacted by this newsroom.

“Within 24 hours of testing positive, all individuals are contacted by a medical team from Mater Dei Hospital”, it replied. “The positive person and all those in the same household are immediately subjected to mandatory quarantine”.

“The contact tracing and case management teams then further contact the positive case to do a risk assessment of possible contacts beyond the person’s household, going back to two days prior to his first symptoms”, it continued.

This newsroom also asked the ministry about confusion regarding the email system of contact tracing, in that individuals are confused with which email address to use to raise their queries and concerns with the contact tracing team directly.

In response, the ministry said that there are “various email addresses used by Public Health on various aspects”. With regards to any questions for contact tracing, the ministry said that individuals can email the contact tracing team on [email protected] and for any queries about quarantine, individuals should email [email protected].