More people affected with novel coronavirus (Covid-19) in Qatar are recovering and their details will be announced in the coming days, a top official of the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) told Gulf Times in an exclusive interview. “All the four recovered cases have been discharged from the hospital and many more are on the recovery path,” Sheikh Dr Mohamed bin Hamad alThani, Director of Public Health, said.

All the recovered cases have been advised to stay home for a few more days just to make sure that everything goes well. “We can handle the situation very effectively and have the best protocol in place for curing the disease with a combination of treatment options. In this regard, we are ready to help the people as much as possible,” he said.

“Now the number of people in quarantine is going down as many of the cases have been found negative. Similarly, the number in quarantine will dramatically go down in the coming days as nobody can travel to Qatar for the next two weeks,” the official said.

According to him, the number of positive cases will not see any huge increase in the coming days. He said that the cases being reported now have been in large numbers because the testing of the people, who are in quarantine from the epicenter of the disease, is being finalized. “I think we had high number of cases reported these days and such huge number of cases will not happen again.

This happened because many of the quarantined people were tested on the same day and we made the announcement of 238 cases on a particular day. Even if any cases are detected in the coming days, it would be only in very less numbers, maybe in tens, not more than that,” explained Sheikh Dr Mohamed.

The official said that the next two weeks is the most crucial period and through the measures announced on Sunday. Sheikh Dr Mohamed said that as per the initial assessment, the virus found among the patients in Qatar, is not very aggressive as in Wuhan, China. “We have no deaths and no intensive cases so far and we assume that the virus here is somewhat benign and not very aggressive.

Qatar’s healthcare system was able to identify the cases through a very effective surveillance using its Severe and Acute Respiratory Infection Programme. “We first found three cases and located them at the Industrial Area of the city. We went to the market where these people have been working as well as their houses and were able to locate all the contacts of these cases.

Since they were laborers and living in close contact among them, we quarantined hundreds of people, checked them and found many positive for the disease,” he pointed out. “We tested people in other places and there were no such widespread cases. At this particular location in Industrial Area, we had the maximum number of cases.

Source https://img.gulf-times.com/Content/PDF/Dailynewspaper/Main2020_3_17133144.PDF

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