Given the current status of the COVID-19 virus spread, the Government Medical Officers’ Association (GMOA) has submitted 10 proposals to the Director General of Health Services to contain it.
The proposals are strengthening the patient identifying process by increasing test capacity and maintaining a random sample testing process and thereby imposing local travel restrictions on patients, clusters and contacts without delay.
In addition, the GMOA proposes to control the spread of the disease by establishing an efficient mechanism for communicating with health officials when imposing local travel restrictions, updating guidelines for discharging cured patients from the hospital, identify short and long term remedies to increase the number of beds in treatment centres and beds in intensive care units and ensuring personal protective equipment and adequate oxygen storage required by health staff and an efficient delivery mechanism. Also, the GMOA has highlighted the dangers of importing new strains of viruses into the country by quarantining foreigners and the importance of giving priority to the opinion of health experts in decision making regarding disease control in such a public health emergency.