BAKU, Azerbaijan, Feb. 2
Trend:
Azerbaijan has achieved what it wanted by taking preventive measures in the fight against the pandemic from the early days, President Ilham Aliyev said in an interview to the Azerbaijani Television following viewing conditions created at the newly constructed building of Absheron District Central Hospital, Trend reports.
“It is quite remarkable that this hospital opens during the pandemic. Of course, the construction of this hospital began before the pandemic, and we had to insure ourselves against possible surprises with the construction of these hospitals. Because no-one could have imagined that there would be a pandemic. But other unpleasant things could have happened. Therefore, our hospital fund had to be ready for that. I think that Azerbaijan has achieved what it wanted by taking preventive measures in the fight against the pandemic from the early days. We have managed to keep the situation under control at all times during this year. Of course, the fact that we bought new laboratories to the country has played a special role here. Because we had only eight laboratories before the pandemic, and only a thousand tests could be performed a day. At present, the number of laboratories has reached 42 and as many as 20,000 tests can be performed. So we are doing that. A total of 2.4 million tests have been performed. That is a very large number,” President Aliyev said.
“At the same time, in the early days of the pandemic we started to bring modular hospitals to the country, and I think we have shown leadership in that as well. Many countries took similar steps after us but manufacturers could not catch up any longer. We brought and installed 13 modular hospitals in Azerbaijan. Now we have a full hospital fund that allows us to resolve all issues related to the disease, and there are enough wards and intensive care units. It is as a result of that and of the public policy that there has been a positive trend in recent weeks. The number of those recovering is much higher than the number of incoming patients. I think more successful steps will be taken in this area now that vaccination has begun. This is why we have now entered a phase of relaxing the restrictions. During the year, we either softened or tightened the quarantine, took steps to protect people's health and, at the same time, did not create additional difficulties for people when they were unnecessary. So we have always been very sensitive in addressing these two important issues - people's health and comfort and, as they say, their morale,” Azerbaijani president said.
“We are, of course, very pleased that international organizations appreciate Azerbaijan's activities. But our main goal has been to protect our people and citizens. After all, it was not clear in the first days of the pandemic what the dangers or complications of this disease were. In fact, there is still no complete research of that. Therefore, we took these steps from the early days and, at the same time, established contacts with the World Health Organization to try to work as effectively as possible in this area. As you have mentioned, the World Health Organization already talks about an “Azerbaijan model”, praises the work done and has repeatedly cited Azerbaijan as an exemplary country. At the same time, I was recently informed that Gallup, the world's leading polling company, also conducted an opinion poll among Azerbaijani citizens. Eighty-six percent of our citizens appreciate the activity of the state in this area, and according to this indicator Azerbaijan ranks fourth in the world. In other words, both international organizations, the World Health Organization, which is a leading organization in this field, and the people of the country appreciate our work. This is an indicator in itself and shows that we are on the right path. We have always told the truth to the citizens. We have always said that this is necessary, if we do not do this, we will face major problems and our health care system will not be able to mobilize its resources to treat the growing number of patients. I am glad that citizens met all our calls with understanding. As a result, both public policy and the growing responsibility of citizens have allowed us the opportunity to keep the situation under control to this day,” the head of state said.