3 February
Senior officials from the Ministry of Health and Sports held a meeting at the Union Minister’s office in Yangon to discuss the ongoing measures against Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in Myanmar yesterday morning.
The daily coordination meeting (6/2020) was attended by Union Minister Dr Myint Htwe and senior officers from his office. They discussed topics, including bringing back Myanmar students from Wuhan city to preparedness of respective departments.
Out of 63 Myanmar students in the city of Hubei province, 59 persons landed by a special flight to Mandalay at 4 am. Among four remaining students, one did not meet Chinese immigration rules to come back to Myanmar, another one was outside the province and the other two were left there for medical treatments as they have got a high fever.
Those returnee students are being given medical treatments in isolation rooms of the Kandawnadi Hospital in Mandalay under the management of the regional Public Health Department.
A visitor who arrived at Yangon International Airport from Guangzhou city of China on 31 January was found with the symptoms of high fever, cough, sneeze and sore throat. The Chinese person was treated in quarantined room and closely monitored. The patient’s health condition is stable until yesterday morning, and patient’s specimen were analyzed at the clinical laboratory in Myanmar. On February 1, the specimens were sent to a referred laboratory after discussions with the WHO.
Another airplane passenger who arrived in Myanmar from China was not found with any symptom after thorough investigations, and the passenger is still in good health conditions until yesterday morning. The Public Health Department of Yangon Region has instructed respective hotels where other passengers from the same flight with the above-mentioned passenger to carry out careful monitoring on their health conditions.
Myanmar health authorities have arranged for disseminating information about prevention of the 2019-nCoV to the respective hotels through the Ministry of Hotels and Tourism, fielding investigation teams at three international airports of the country and 20 border gates in 10 townships of 4 States/Regions, setting up a mechanism to collect reports sent by the respective public health and medical service departments of States and Regions, and participations of Myanmar Red Cross Society, Myanmar Nurse and Midwife Association and Myanmar Health Assistant Association.
The Head of Yangon Region’s Public Health and Medical Services Department explained inspection of healthcare facilities at Yangon International Airport on 1 February, duty assignment of more staff members at the airport, releasing update information of WHO, analyzing the spread of Novel Coronavirus in China and other countries, accumulation of medicines and equipment, distributions to health facilities and quashing rumours with real time correct information.
After the discussions, the Union Minister elaborated the ministry’s high priority on prevention and control measures against the disease, dissemination of health information in States and Regions, sending reports of health workers at international airports and border gates to the Central Epidemiological Unit not later than 10 am every day, report of CEU to the office of ministry on health conditions of the 59 Myanmar students and regular departmental coordination of CEU by using any communication network.
Officials also discussed releasing update news about the disease by 10 am to the public every day, daily report to the Union Minister for editing policy and skills before sending it to the President’s Office, uploading latest news to the ministry’s website, cooperation of public health workers and healthcare associations, distribution of healthcare knowledge to public and postponing entertainment events.
The Department of Epidemiology from the University of Public Health in Yangon will also give consultations in preventive efforts, while officials have pushed urgent completions of new two-storey building and three-storey building of Waibargi Hospital.
The officials also made discussions about holding an inter-ministerial meeting every week in prevention of Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV), mandatory reporting of private hospital and clinics on the suspected symptoms of virus and implementations of the plans.—MNA(Translated by Aung Khin)
