Press releases

19 Mar 2020

Six coronavirus patients in Belarus fully recovered

An archive photo

MINSK, 19 March (BelTA) - The first six patients to test positive for the novel coronavirus in Belarus has fully recovered and is out of isolation. The news was reported on the ONT TV channel, BelTA has learned.

Several more patients are getting ready to be discharged from hospital. Nine patients show symptoms of the COVID-19 infection. Eight of them display light symptoms of the virus and one patient is in intensive care. 37 more people who tested positive for the virus are currently under medical monitoring. They display no symptoms of the virus.

Some 1,960 people who have returned from at-risk countries remain under medical observation. Nearly 2,700 people who were under a 14-day surveillance have already been medically cleared. Seventeen out of all the coronavirus positive tests were imported. The rest is local transmission. The latest four cases have been imported from Spain, France, Germany and Saint Petersburg (they were identified at quarantine stations).

The Healthcare Ministry calls upon everyone who comes back to Belarus from at-risk countries to be honest when filling out questionnaires. "When crossing the border or arriving at the airport, travelers receive a questionnaire. They must fill it out and address the quarantine station. Medical workers and sanitary and epidemiologic specialists analyze the questionnaire and decide on collecting biomaterial from suspected COVID-19 patients if necessary,” Deputy Healthcare Minister Elena Bogdan said.

If a person has forgotten to visit the quarantine station, he or she can visit their territorial polyclinics and tell their doctors that they had been to at-risk countries (at the moment these are China, the Republic of Korea, Iran and Italy, but the list of such countries may change).