MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 16th May, 2020) The World Health Organization (WHO) has raised concerns about the increasing number of coronavirus cases in dormitories for migrant workers across the middle East, where many foreign workers live, Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, COVID-19 technical lead at WHO, said on Friday.
"Another worrying trend in the Middle East are increasing case numbers in dormitories, where many expat workers live, and in a number of countries across the Gulf States a large proportion of the population that live there are not from that country," van Kerkhove said at a press conference.
The expert also said that during a preliminary teleconference earlier in the day, the WHO Eastern Mediterranean regional office discussed ways to curb the virus in such closed settings with several countries, including Singapore, which also faces the problem of growing infections in migrant dormitories. According to van Kerkhove, there are very similar conditions and the fundamentals of what needs to be done in each one of these closed settings are the same.
"So it was a very good opportunity to be able to exchange and learn from one another to see how these outbreaks could be brought under control and so that we could prevent them from further happening," she added.
The main problem of such dormitories in the Gulf States is that they are overcrowded and do not allow dwellers to maintain social distance to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
