Nicaragua COVID-19 Update 24th March
From: Ambassador of Nicaragua
There are currently no registered deaths and no local transmission in Nicaragua. At the time of writing there are two registered cases, both imported. The patients are stable and show signs of improvement. The six people who came into contact with them are being monitored according to best practice. Full details here.
Nicaragua is working hand in hand with the Pan American Health Organisation (the regional arm of the World Health Organisation). Ana Emilia Solís, the organisation’s representative in Nicaragua, has stated that since January, when the Nicaraguan Government declared a sanitary alert due to the threat of COVID-19: “Nicaragua has been working according to (WHO and PAHO) guidelines. It has been working hard on the enlistment of health services, strengthening epidemiological surveillance and has been working with the Community Health Network to identify possible cases that may occur at the community level”. She also noted that Nicaragua has a family and community oriented healthcare model that gives institutions trust, involvement and access to local communities, ensuring quick and appropriate actions can be taken, and that official advice and orders are met with co-operation.
Nicaragua is also collaborating very closely with the other seven nations of the Central American Integration System – Belize, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Panama -, currently presided by Secretary General HE Vinicio Cerezo, to jointly implement the CAIS Contingency Plan. In the case of each country, the Heads of State are directly signatories of the plan and co-ordinating actions daily, while the organisation is publishing daily reports and collectively agreed decisions.
The Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Health of Nicaragua, as well as the Head of Migration, met with their Costa Rican counterparts on Saturday to ensure both countries efforts are fully aligned and co-ordinated in all these areas. Our country is also working closely with Taiwan, which among other things has donated vital medical equipment and shared immensely valuable expertise and techniques from its own efforts against COVID19, which are world renowned, while Cuba has, among other support, sent brigades of Doctors in solidarity to aid Nicaragua’s efforts and is working on helping Nicaragua to manufacture Interferon alfa-2b, to help combat the virus.
An early detection network is currently mobilising more than 250,000 health professionals and volunteer brigades to provide preventative education, medical attention and testing, through further door to door visits, mobile clinics and health centres, which just this weekend reached 736,471 families in 6,529 communities or districts, and which continue fully active in all the country. Extra testing and treatment equipment are being provided to local health centres and hospitals. Full testing is also in place at the 15 entry and exit points to Nicaragua.
Guisell Morales-Echaverry
Ambassador of Nicaragua to the UK, Ireland and Iceland
