Viktor Liashko: Medical personnel are the specialists capable of containing coronavirus infection

According to world statistics, more than 940,000 cases of coronavirus illness have been registered with 78,000 cases registered daily. At this rate, a global pandemic will soon turn 1 million cases. This was announced today during a briefing by the Deputy Minister of Health, Chief State Sanitary Doctor of Ukraine Viktor Liashko.

"I call on all people to remain on self-isolation, while for the elderly - to remain on absolute self-isolation. There should not be no other options," Viktor Lyashko stressed.

The official informed a new COVID-19 outbreak had been registered in China that day. "Over the past 24 hours, 1,600 new cases of laboratory-confirmed coronavirus have been reported in China, 7 of which have already been fatal," the Deputy Minister told.

Viktor Liashko appealed to the community with a call to support doctors. "Today, we must support doctors in every possible way. This applies to both the authorities and the general public. Today, doctors are those people who will be able to contain the coronavirus disease. We, the doctors, need the support of everyone, and we call on everyone to realize what is happening in our country. I urge to support health workers, to provide them with personal protective equipment, to make the priority purchases that have been planned for now. Doctors are our heroes, they are saving lives of our people!" said the Deputy Minister.

Commenting on the issue of opening food markets, Victor Liashko stressed that the Ministry of Health did not open markets. The resolution of the Chief State Sanitary Doctor clearly stipulates the requirements when local governments can allow the market to be opened only if an opportunity to buy food for the population living in one or another locality is absent. "It's not a call to open markets, it's an opportunity to give people access to food during the quarantine period. Hence, once again I urge not to violate, but to fulfill all the requirements of quarantine. If it is necessary to open one or another product market, the local government is obliged to fulfill all those requirements, set forth in the resolution," Viktor Liashko said.

Background

According to the results of the research of the Virology Reference Laboratory of the Public Health Center of Ukraine and the regional laboratory centers, 804 cases of COVID-19 were identified, including 20 deaths, 13 patients recovered as of 10:00 on April 2. During the day, 135 new cases were recorded.

The number of confirmed cases by region is as follows:

Vinnytsia region - 51 cases;

Volyn region - 10 cases;

Dnipropetrovsk region - 10 cases;

Donetsk region - 7 cases;

Zhytomyr region - 6 cases;

Zakarpattia region - 1 case;

Zaporizhia region - 19 cases;

Ivano-Frankivsk region - 74 cases;

Kyiv city - 160 cases;

Kyiv region - 64 cases;

Kirovograd region - 7 cases;

Lviv region - 11 cases;

Luhansk region - 3 cases;

Odessa region - 14 cases;

Poltava region - 5 cases;

Rivne region - 19 cases;

Sumy region - 26 cases;

Ternopil region - 106 cases;

Kharkiv region - 1 case;

Kherson region - 4 cases;

Khmelnytsky region - 6 cases;

Cherkasy region - 54 cases;

Chernivtsi region - 143 cases;

Chernihiv region - 3 cases.

Since the beginning of the year, the Public Health Center of Ukraine has received 3,834 samples for novel coronavirus infection suspicion.