As state is to step up efforts to combat it
THT-Almost the first quarter of the year, have so far seen, about four dozen COVID-19 death cases in the country depicting a sharp rise of casualties in a new wave.
This was revealed in a virtual conference held by the council of the cabinet ministers in their 72nd session.
The first two and half weeks of the month of March alone has registered 29 deaths, with February having 13 and two deaths registered in January, as per the health minister’s brief that was chaired by the President H.E. Musa Bihi Abdi.
The ministers were informed that this year confirmed cases were 59, 232 and 607 respectively from Jan to March against 4339, 5059 and 4055 cases tested respectively in the same consecutive three months period.
The council of ministers acknowledged the fact that the measures against the pandemic out to be stepped up even further so as to combat it.
They pointed out that they would soon spell out directives to the effect at national level.
On the other hand water relief efforts were made towards distributing the all-important commodity to 130 trading centers or villages in the country.
According to the Religion and Endowment minister, 37800 barrels of water were distributed to the said villages.
These efforts, he said, were made by the government who used its water bowsers to do the distribution that would have otherwise costed the villagers 154,000 USD.
The areas with dire needs that the cabinet was told were Togdheer, Saraar and Sool regions, Eil-Afweyn, Gar-adag districts in Sanaag, and Adaadley and Salahlay in Marodi-jeh region.
The commerce minister was directed to delve into the surrounding causes of the spiraling fuel prices for the past three weeks with the aim of seeing to it that ways and means of addressing the hikes, given that there is drought almost country-wide.
By M.A. Egge