Tunisia: Elyes Fakhfakh tries to reassure about the pandemic

Text by: Michel Picard Follow

The Prime Minister was live on several television channels Thursday evening April 2. He gave a long update on the crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

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From our correspondent in Tunis,

The country, which officially has 455 cases and 14 deaths, took drastic measures very early to slow the spread of the virus. Night curfew on March 16, border closing, then general confinement on March 22.

It is therefore the image of a combative and prepared head of government that Elyes Fakhfakh wanted to send to the twelve million Tunisians, worried about the pandemic which is gradually reaching their territory where the public health system is proving to be under- equipped, disorganized and uneven depending on the region.

The sick will be treated with chloroquine , which he says the country has stocks of. Faced with the lack of tests he wants to generalize, an order for 400,000 units should arrive from South Korea at the end of next week. General confinement has made it possible, he says, to flatten the curve of new cases. However, he acknowledged a relaxation in the confinement that weighs on hundreds of thousands of workers in the informal economy now without income.

A welcome performance, says Nesrine Jelalia, director of the non-governmental organization Al-Bawsala: " He was very humble and reassuring without giving in false hopes or in disillusionment. This crisis is superimposed on another economic and social crisis that the country has been experiencing for a few years already. He also gave very, very clear economic and social measures. So there people are actually waiting to know how they are going to eat. "

Retired, unemployed and precarious workers have obtained concrete answers on the emergency measures which concern them. Nothing, however, for the thousands of Sub-Saharans, students or precarious workers, often undocumented, totally deprived of resources and for whom citizen solidarity is organized.

The country, which officially has 455 cases and 14 deaths, took drastic measures very early to slow the spread of the virus. Night curfew on March 16, border closing, then general confinement on March 22.

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