TIRANA – With 113 confirmed infected people by COVID -19 in one day out of 135 new cases at national level Albania’s Capital Tirana has become the most dangerous hotspot of coronavirus pandemic in the Balkans.
This was confirmed officially by Dr. Marjeta Dervishi from the Institute of Public Health (ISHP) who released the daily medical bulletin on Friday announcing that 586 tests were made in the last 24 hours.
The number of the infected persons varied from 11 in Durres to 1 each in Shkodra, Kruja, Has, Kavaja, Vlora, Tropoja, and Kamez. Kukes and Vora reported 2 cases each.
Dr. Dervishi said that the number of fatalities dropped to 1 and death toll stands at 189 since the outbreak of the disease on March 8 this year.
In addition she said that there is an increase of the recovered people (72). The total number of recovered persons is 3,277.
Currently, according to her, there are 122 patients hospitalized at the infectious diseases hospital and “Shefqet Ndroqi” hospital where 20 infected persons are in intensive therapy and 3 are intubated.
As of August 7, 2020, the C19 statistics is as follows: total tests-44,881, positive cases – 6,151, recovered persons- 3,227, active cases – 2,735 and fatalities-189.
In the meantime Dr. Dervishi said that 1,600 family doctors are treating C19 active persons at their houses across the country. It is to be noted that the engagement of ‘family doctors’ is mentioned for the second day in the daily bulletins of ISHP after the announcement by the Health Minister, Ogerta Manastirliu on the matter last Thursday.
Since long many specialists insisted on the primary role of the ‘family doctors’ in facing the pandemic but no mention was made of them by health authorities as a means to cut the chain of the spread of the virus.
Also, authorities reconfirm C19 hospitals 3 and 4 are ready to start work in case there is no room in the current two hospitals in Tirana.
What remains a sort of an enigma for the Albanian public opinion is the silence of PM Edi Rama on the C19 infection now when it has taken frightful proportions. It is a wonder because during the March-May period of the disease when the number of fatalities and hospitalizations was very low Rama spoke at least for times per day using war-related terms. Now no one mentions the word ‘war’ situation, when figures show that Albania is at real war with the deadly virus, particularly when its Capital Tirana registered a daily figure of 113 cases on Friday! /argumentum.al
