First Coronavirus death in Libya announced

By Sami Zaptia.

London, 2 April 2020:

Libya announced its first Coronavirus (Covid-19) related death late tonight.

The country’s National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) said the 11^th Coronavirus case in the country was a an 85-year old woman and that it only became clear she had the virus after tests were conducted on her after her death.

Libya’s official Coronavirus cases

The NCDC did not reveal in which city the case was from.

With regards to Libya’s first patient announced on 24 March, a 73-year old man, the NCDC said that he was recovering well and that it was testing him again. It had also again denied reports originating from his family that he had fully recovered and that he had left Al-Hadba Al-Khadra hospital.

Yesterday it had also reported that it had conducted 5 more tests on suspected cases that all proved negative.

Training

Yesterday, the MoH HR launches training program to introduce anti-Coronavirus virus infection precautions within health facilities

The Ministry of Health’s Human Resources Department, in collaboration with MSF, launched a training program to inform health practitioners of the precautions and conditions of anti-Coronavirus infection in health facilities during the handling of suspected new Coronavirus cases.

The Ministry reported that the training program also aims to provide health practitioners with knowledge of risks and complications of the virus infection, the screening mechanism and how to deal with suspected cases.

The program will be implemented within 25 health centres in the major municipalities of Tripoli during the first phase.

Quarantine centre

The Ministry also reported yesterday that it was in the process of completing the fifth Quarantine centre, a floating centre on board the ship Ben Oaf at Tripoli’s Bus Sitta Naval base, expected to be ready in two weeks.

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