A sero-epidemiological study after two waves of the COVID-19 epidemic.

Background: The COVID-19 situation in Maldives have evolved since the epidemic began in March 2020 with unprecedented increase in cases since mid-July 2019 with over 8000 cases at the end of August 2020.

Objective: The aim of the sero-epidemiological investigation is to obtain a sense of the population exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 by measuring the seroprevalence of antibodies to COVID-19 in the general population.

Methods: A population-based, age-stratified prospective method was employed to find out the key epidemiological and serologic characteristics of COVID-19 virus in this study.

Genetic epidemiology of beta-thalassemia in the Maldives: 23 years of a beta-thalassemia screening program.

The Maldives is an archipelago of 407,660 people according to population census of 2014, made up of 20 atolls, which has one of the highest prevalence of β-thalassemia worldwide. However, there is a dearth of studies related to β-thalassemia in the Maldives; therefore, in this study, we aimed to investigate the genetic epidemiology of β-thalassemia in Maldives. Blood samples were collected from 110,504 participants (1992-2015).