ULAN BATOR, Nov. 17 (Xinhua) -- Mongolia confirmed three new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, bringing its national caseload to 434, the country's National Center for Communicable Diseases (NCCD) said Tuesday.
"A total of 1,762 tests for COVID-19 were conducted across Mongolia yesterday and three of them were positive," Amarjargal Ambaselmaa, head of the NCCD's Surveillance Department, said at a press conference.
One of the latest new cases, who is the brother of a 29-year-old infected Mongolian transport driver, was locally transmitted, raising the country's locally transmitted COVID-19 cases to over 20.
The driver returned home from Russia via Altanbulag border point and tested positive for the virus four days after he was released from the 21-day mandatory isolation on Nov. 6.
Mongolia on Sunday extended a nationwide lockdown to contain the pandemic for two weeks until Dec. 1. The earlier lockdown was imposed after the country confirmed its first COVID-19 case of local transmission, involving the wife of the infected driver.
Domestic transmissions of the virus have been reported in the capital city Ulan Bator and Selenge province in northern Mongolia.
Currently, tests for COVID-19 are available at around 90 family general hospitals in Ulan Bator, home to over half of the country's 3.2 million population. People can come to the hospitals voluntarily for tests, according to the health ministry. Enditem
