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 ...