Coronavirus: Albania opts for drastic containment measures

Text by: RFI Follow

Albanians now need permission from the police to be able to go out shopping.

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With our correspondent in Albania , Louis Seiller

Only one person per household and only one hour to do their shopping. The latest measures taken by the Albanian authorities to contain the Covid-19 epidemic are particularly strict. Since Monday, March 30, a police authorization is indeed necessary to leave your home.

To go to the supermarket or the pharmacy, Albanian citizens must make the request on a government platform or by SMS, specifying the time of their exit. In the streets of the country, the army and the police have been deployed to enforce these measures.

Retirees are automatically excluded from this new process: considered to be at risk, they are completely prohibited from leaving their homes.

Schools and borders closed

Albania, a country of less than three million inhabitants, currently has 223 declared cases of coronavirus and eleven people have died. As soon as the zero patient from neighboring Italy was detected on March 9, the Albanian authorities opted for strong measures by closing schools and borders, quickly prohibiting the circulation of all private vehicles and establishing a curfew at 1 p.m. They thus ensure that they can avoid saturation of their health system.

In the Western Balkans, including Albania, contamination by the new coronavirus is soaring. This poor region of Europe is preparing for the worst, with a health system handicapped by the exodus of its doctors and by the lack of equipment.

According to the World Health Organization, when Italy has 4.1 doctors per 1,000 inhabitants, Albania has only 1.2, the lowest rate in Europe.

Our selection on SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus

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• Albania
• Coronavirus
• Health and Medicine
• Containment

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