Highlighting Bahrain’s COVID-19 fight

TDT | Manama

Bahrain called for a unified effort and cooperation between countries in the ongoing battle against the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Health Minister Faeqa bint Said Al Saleh made the appeal as she joined representatives of 194 other World Health Organisation (WHO) member countries in a first-ever video-conference.

Bahrain’s statement was delivered by the Health Minister during the session. It highlighted concerted international efforts to combat COVID-19, which has taken a heavy toll on all sectors and put an unprecedented burden on health, social and economic services worldwide.

The Health Minister stressed the need to take comprehensive measures to limit the spread of the virus and find treatment. The statement underlined Bahrain’s integrated governmental approach in responding to the COVID-19 outbreak, which contributed to slowing the spread of the pandemic.

It highlighted the efforts led by His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander and First Deputy Premier, pointing out the establishment of the National Taskforce for Combatting COVID-19 to manage all precautionary measures, take action to mitigate the pandemic fallout, mobilise the public, and implement world-standard tracing procedures.

The statement highlighted Bahrain’s keenness to provide the necessary funding to increase the capacity of hospitals, quarantine and isolation centres, and laboratory testing sites, and to develop a plan to secure the stocks needed to carry out lab tests, as well as intensive care equipment and protection equipment.

A complete plan was also drawn up to recruit, qualify and train the necessary manpower. The statement further underlined Bahrain’s COVID-19 case management and therapeutic capacity improvement, adding that the Kingdom’s treatment protocols have proven effective in enabling a large number of infected patients recover.

It also noted that Bahrain was the first Arab country to join the WHO’s “Solidarity Trial”, and that the Kingdom has also started clinical treatment experiments using plasma collected from recovered patients.