Coronavirus reaps victims in Turkmenistan, but the government remains silent

It is the country most at risk, but officials deny presence of positive cases or deaths. No sanitary measures are applied. Witnesses, often anonymous, speak of hospitals full of people with respiratory problems, cemeteries flooded with coffins, nurses who die.

Ashgabat (AsiaNews) - Of all Central Asia, Turkmenistan is the country most at risk on Covid-19, reports Russian agency Rosbalt. Yet to date, officially there are no positive cases in the country, there are no health protection measures, no masks or spacing, not even emergency respirators in hospitals.

Meanwhile, the United States has allocated $ 1.5 million to support the fight against Covid-19 in Turkmenistan. To guarantee US funding, a visit by international experts to check the situation had been scheduled at the end of April, but so far it has not been possible.

In the meantime, an extraordinary peak of "pneumonia" has been recorded in the country. As the correspondents of Radio Azatlik in the capital Askhabad reported on June 10, the city's hospitals are overloaded with patients with breathing difficulties, but the authorities continue to deny that it is coronavirus. The operators of the Center for the prophylaxis and treatment of infections, under anonymity, declare themselves very worried about the conditions of the patients, among which there are already many deaths.

There is no doubt among doctors that this is an aggressive coronavirus infection. According to the testimonies collected, several patients die directly during the preliminary visits, and the names of those with whom they came into contact are collected. The indication of doctors, sent directly to patients and visitors, is to keep all the elderly at home.

Some cases have been disclosed: A Lebapa nurse, who works in the anesthesiology department, was confirmed to have infected coronavirus, according to the department management. Likewise other nurses from the same hospital, who did not want to make their conditions public. An infected patient from China is said to have been received in the Lebapa ward, who died after a lung operation. Other deaths would have occurred in Dashoguse, again shrouded in silence, and the country's cemeteries would be close to collapse, unable to guarantee funeral services.

US ambassador to the OSCE, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, James Gilmore,  invited the rulers of Turkmenistan via Twitter to transparency and the dissemination of real data on the pandemic in the country. The World Health Organization has renewed the request to send a commission of experts to assess the situation.

• turkmenistan
• central asia
• covid-19
• pandemic
• coronavirus
• hospitals