{"id":397927,"date":"2020-04-12T16:23:14","date_gmt":"2020-04-12T13:23:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/?p=397927"},"modified":"2020-04-12T16:23:14","modified_gmt":"2020-04-12T13:23:14","slug":"sudans-health-minister-says-country-needs-120-million-to-fight-coronavirus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/sudans-health-minister-says-country-needs-120-million-to-fight-coronavirus\/","title":{"rendered":"Sudan’s health minister says country needs $120 million to fight coronavirus"},"content":{"rendered":"

Khartoum<\/strong>(SONNA): Sudan urgently needs $120 million to fight the new coronavirus, the country\u2019s health minister told Reuters on Saturday, amid a shortage of the equipment to fight the epidemic which has ravaged richer countries.<\/p>\n

Although Sudan has so far reported relatively few cases, the global outbreak has arrived at a time when it faces an economic crisis.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are preparing a strategy to face coronavirus that extends until the end of June, but to execute it we urgently need $120 million to provide protective equipment for healthcare workers and to prepare healthcare facilities and advanced lab testing equipment,\u201d said health minister Akram Ali Altom.<\/p>\n

Al tom serves in the civilian-led government which has run Sudan following a power-sharing agreement with the military signed in August. Exactly one year ago, months of protests brought down three-decade ruler Omar Al-Bashir.<\/p>\n

Until now, Sudan has reported 19 confirmed coronavirus cases, including two deaths, but Altom said that \u201cif it spreads, Sudan\u2019s situation health-wise and economically means it cannot handle a large outbreak.\u201d<\/p>\n

Current capacity for beds with ventilators was just in the \u201chundreds\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n

The coronavirus outbreak is the latest epidemic to face Sudan, which has had to deal with outbreaks of cholera with a depleted infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Sudan began testing for those who arrived at its international airport in February.<\/p>\n

In March it closed all airports and border crossings to non-commercial traffic.<\/p>\n

The government also imposed a twelve-hour curfew, shut down schools and universities, and banned events and gatherings. Some of its measures have been met with a lack of cooperation.<\/p>\n

The minister said that his ministry has recommended a complete lock-down of the capital Khartoum for three weeks, as well as an increase in the number of quarantine centers and testing capacity.<\/p>\n

A major barrier to any lock-down is likely to be the large number of Sudanese people who work in the informal economy.<\/p>\n

The minister said that he expected that a new health emergency law would be introduced on Sunday.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source:<\/strong> Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Khartoum(SONNA): Sudan urgently needs $120 million to fight the new coronavirus, the country\u2019s health minister told Reuters on Saturday, amid a shortage of the equipment to fight the epidemic which has ravaged richer countries. Although Sudan has so far reported relatively few cases, the global outbreak has arrived at a time when it faces an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397928,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,78],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-397927","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397927"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397927\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":397929,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397927\/revisions\/397929"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}