BAKU, Azerbaijan, Apr.11
By Nargiz Sadikhova - Trend:
Chinese business magnate Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma sent medical protective equipment to Kazakhstan to help the country battle coronavirus pandemic, Trend reports with reference to Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The ministry said that cargo from Jack Ma and Alibaba funds arrived in Kazakhstan’s Almaty city from China’s Shijiazhuang city on Apr. 10, 2020.
The 4.5 ton-cargo included 500,000 medical masks, 5,000 protective suits, 50,000 medical gloves, and non-contact thermometers. The funds are also planning to ship express COVID-19 tests and medical ventilators to Kazakhstan in the nearest future.
Total number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Kazakhstan amounted to 840. The first two cases of coronavirus infection were detected in Kazakhstan among those who arrived in Almaty city from Germany on March 13, 2020.
On March 15, 2020, Kazakhstan’s President Kassym Jomart Tokayev signed a decree introducing an emergency state in Kazakhstan due to the coronavirus outbreak, which came in force from 08:00 (GMT +6) on March 16 and will last till 08:00 April 15, 2020.
On Apr. 10, 2020 Tokayev said that the emergency state period in Kazakhstan will be extended till the end of Apr. 2020.
The outbreak of the coronavirus began in the Chinese city of Wuhan (an international transport hub), at a fish market in late December 2019. The number of people killed by the disease has surpassed 102,000. Over 1.6 million people have been confirmed as infected. Meanwhile, over 376,000 people have reportedly recovered.
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11. Some sources claim the coronavirus outbreak started as early as November 2019.
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