BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug. 24
By Ilkin Seyfaddini – Trend:
From the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak abroad, in China, the Government of Uzbekistan has put measures in place to be better prepared, Head of the WHO Country Office in Uzbekistan, Doctor Lianne Kuppens told Trend in an interview.
As she said, WHO worked from early January onwards jointly with the Ministry of Health and other ministries to be prepared for the COVID-19 virus.
“Together with the Ministry we tried to be prepared in many different areas including having hospitals prepared, intensive care units prepared, get health workers trained in the whole country to identify cases and be able to take care for them. We prepared and got ready for testing and testing facilities, for putting people in isolation as needed, having quarantine facilities established for all those who have been in contact with COVID-infected people, having surveillance system addressed and so on,” she said.
According to her, measures taken by Uzbekistan to fight the coronavirus pandemic are quite sufficient but taking into account the scale of the problem, the current resurgence of cases, there is a need to continue investing in all the Public Health measures and not relax.
“Coronavirus exposed health system weaknesses all over the world, including Uzbekistan. Dozens of patients at the same time requiring urgent medical assistance at hospitals placed enormous pressure on the health system, including medical staff as well as hospital management. Adequate stocks of medicines, experienced health workers, trained laboratory specialists, treatment protocols - all these aspects are equally important and need lots of investment,” Kuppens said.
She stressed that the Government of Uzbekistan continues to work with all partners to improve the country’s health system.
“Currently, the situation is slowly improving. For several days, there has been a downward trend in the number of new cases and it might indeed mean we are seeing a stabilization of the situation and hopefully a further decrease of new cases,” said Head of the WHO Country Office in Uzbekistan.
---
Follow author on Twitter: @seyfaddini