Yesterday (14 April), a state of emergency was declared at Ulaanbaatar’s Songdo Hospital: Two men aged over 80 and 40, who were undergoing cancer and bronchitis treatments, were tested by a rapid test for the novel coronavirus, resulting in positive, reported the Ministry of Health. The older patient’s granson, who is in his 40s, returned to Mongolia mid-February from abroad and evidently met his grandfather. So, the cases became suspicious.

After the test, the patients were immediately isolated and their samples were sent for RT- PCR testing to the Central Laboratory of the National Centre for Communicable Diseases.

Fortunately, the laboratory testing for SARS-CoV-2 in both patients was  negative, reported the Ministry of Health earlier today. Thus, the rapid testing had been inaccurate.

As of today, Mongolia has 30 cases of coronavirus; all of them are imported; five have fully recovered.