Importance of daily screenings of close contacts stressed in western Cuba

MATANZAS, Cuba, Aug 19 (ACN) Mario Sabines Lorenzo, governor of the province of Matanzas, emphasized the need for daily screening of close contacts of COVID-19 cases as one of the ways to provide early care to potential patients.

During the meeting yesterday of the temporary working group for the fight against the deadly epidemic, Sabines Lorenzo stressed that the monitoring of this category of patients, together with that of vulnerable sectors, has top priority in the current epidemiological context.

“Case–finding and –tracking efforts can be carried out every other day depending on the resources available at community level,” said the leader, who highlighted that measures such as the disinfection of homes where confirmed cases reside and the closing of borders and roads are no less important.

“We also need a better management of clinical discharges from isolation centers in order to reduce the number of active cases, still very high, so we can concentrate the infected in our best facilities, he remarked.

The governor also referred to the imperative need to streamline the use of the medical oxygen available for the next three days through a proper evaluation of the patient's condition and an exact dosage in each case.

The province of Matanzas, where the number of single-day infections is on a downward trend, is striving to reduce the effects of the pandemic on the local population, hard hit in July by the so-called invisible enemy.