Somalia is at risk of falling victim to novel Coronavirus due to the country’s infancy health system, president Farmajo warned.
Addressing head of states during IGAD teleconference summit on COVID19, Somali president Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo said the Horn of Africa y is vulnerable to a health emergency in this scale “because of the infancy of infrastructure which are only now starting to take shape.”
The president stated that the countries need to shield ourselves with a common defense against it.
“I also encourage the urgent establishment of a mechanism through which our regional medical experts, led by the Ministries of Health and Public Health Agencies can communicate, share information and coordinate regional efforts,” he said.
He lauded the bloc’s commitment to combat and mitigate this health pandemic.
“Fully recognizing this and the menacing rate at which the Corona virus is spreading globally and within our own region, In this war against the corona virus, these knowledge based actions and their clinical and public health interventions are key to saving the lives of our brotherly people. Indeed, Corona Virus knows no borders,” he said.
Farmajo expressed the virus has already had a disastrous effect on domestic revenue mobilization and personal incomes.
“Given the necessary public health policy measures adopted globally and, by us all too, almost all industries from aviation, retail, professional services to tourism are suffering,” he noted, “The economic losses are grave and, as a region, while we may have individual economic and fiscal interventions to ease the pain on a short-term basis, we do not benefit from a collective fund to mitigate the worst of the economic shock to come from the virus in the medium to long term.”
