MINSK, 5 May (BelTA) – Some 500 officers of the Belarusian Internal Affairs Ministry have tested positive for COVID-19, Belarus' Internal Affairs Minister Yuri Karayev told the media on 5 May, BelTA has learned.
According to the minister, about 500 people have contracted the virus. Thirty-four of them have already recovered. “They mainly show no symptoms. Some of them are in hospital and several people require respiratory support,” Yuri Karayev said.
He said that those tested positive for the coronavirus are security officers, representatives of the police patrol service and internal troops.
The minister stressed that policemen are at increased risk of infection because of the duties they have to perform. Strict measures have been undertaken in the internal affairs system of the country to curb the spread of the virus. Yuri Karayev added that health checkups for police recruits has contributed a lot to a low rate of morbidity among the police officers.
The minister said that 1,000 protective suits are delivered to healthcare institutions of the Internal Affairs Ministry every day. They are made in correctional institutions. The Department of Corrections promptly launched the production of individual protective equipment for physicians as soon as the need arose. “We focused on protective suits and overalls rather than face masks. We started with the production of 3,500 suits per day. Today we make 16,000 of them. Some 15,000 of them are supplied to the Healthcare Ministry. 1,000 suits are reserved for our healthcare institutions,” Yuri Karayev said.
