Algeria Prepares A New National Plan To Confront Coronavirus

The Ministry of Health, Population, and Hospital Reform deployed its medical teams including doctors and representatives of the World Health Organization on Tuesday at the National Institute of Health during a training day for media professionals to provide all information and developments happening nationally and internationally regarding the Coronavirus, which threatens the world.

Director of Prevention at the level of the Ministry of Health, Fourar Djamel, confirmed that the border-monitoring services had not yet detected any suspected or confirmed cases.

“Algerians who were evacuated from the Chinese city of Wuhan, are 31, along with 7 Libyan and Mauritanian foreigners, who are are in good health condition on the ninth day of their evacuation, and they are subject to close medical observation and follow-up. They are expected to leave the hotel where they are staying next Monday after consuming the period of sanitary isolation for health precautions and if they will not show any symptoms until then”.

In turn, Samia Hammadi, the Health Ministry’s Representative for the Prevention Directorate confirmed that Algeria is not safe from Coronavirus and is exposed to this danger like the rest of the world, except that our country is ready at present to face the situation and any case that may be recorded, through the preparations that are made since the first days of the virus spread in China.

“A new national plan is in progress and the Health Ministry is working to put the final touches to it, as it has started work on it within the framework of the established preparations”.

“The plan is based on 5 main axes, the most important of which are health monitoring, epidemiological and viral control, and the regulation of services, treatment and capabilities with curative and preventive measures, in addition to training, communication, sensitivity and information”.

Hammadi spoke about the various committees, national and ministerial cells that work in this regard to besiege and address any situation that may be discovered.

“All the flights coming from different destinations are subject to control procedures after the matter was limited to 4 flights only, which are Doha, the Emirates, Egypt and Istanbul”.

World Health Organization representative in Algeria, Dr Lilia Oubraham said that Algeria is one of the priority countries for the organization as it is classified in the first group for the Africa region as an Africa portal and has important economic and trade dealings with China in addition to being a transit area for many travellers from the communities and the Chinese.

Prof. Zeroual from the specialized hospital El-Hadi Felissi “El Kattar” in Algiers, confirmed that the situation until now is controlled by all the cases that reached his institution and that are related to the dangerous seasonal flu.

The specialist reassured the Algerians that the information that is circulated here and there about the existence of coronavirus or the similarity of symptoms with corona is baseless, and this was confirmed by the analyzes and reports that are received from the reference laboratory of the Pasteur Institute.

“El Kattar health insitution received cases that are suffering from shortness of breath and severe flu, and the working group sent samples to the Pasteur Institute to verify the truth of the matter, but it was a reassuring result and proved that the matter is related to acute flu only”, Zeroual confirmed.

Regarding the period of obtaining the results from the Pasteur Institute, Hammadi Samia explained that the matter does not exceed two hours in which the specialist gets the final result”.

“The Pasteur Institute has the required quantity regarding the coronavirus detectors, knowing that it is an effective member of the International Committee and cooperates with the rest of the international reference laboratories in the field of confronting coronavirus”.