One year COVID, Kosovo is estimated to manage pandemic well

At 17:30 on March 13 of the year, the first two citizens infected with coronary were confirmed. They were a 77-year-old man from the village of Stubble of the Year and a 20-year-old woman from Italy.

At an extraordinary news conference on the first two cases were presented by then Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti, accompanied by Health Minister Arben Vitita.

A year later, the pandemic is trying to be controlled by the vaccine. All countries have almost secured doses for vaccinating citizens against COVID-19, but health authorities in Kosovo have still failed to deliver any doses, even for categories that are most endangered.

Kosova Prees has heard some of the stories of some of the health protagonists who were and continue to be frontline soldiers in the COVID-19 pandemic fight.

Infective Clinic Infectian Izet Sadiku says that during this year they have faced many challenges both professional and emotional. Until it says that they often enjoyed the recovery of patients, Sadiku claims that much harder had experienced the moment of losing a patient.

Izet Sadiku, who was also deputy minister of health at the Kurti Government, said that despite the risk no health professionals have refused to work and be close to patients.

“We have felt powerless to do something at the moment when you saw that you were humanly approaching and dying and we couldn't, and with all the contribution you made, it was a serious situation, but I think that when there's been an analysis after a year, I think, however, knowing what health we have and how much of it has been invested years ago, I think we can face it openly in front of the citizens for the reason that 1 year has been done and no one of our colleagues has hesitated to work”, Sadiku said.

Izet Sadiku, who was also elected task manager of the Infectious Clinic during this week, recalls the first moments a year when the first two citizens turned positive.

“has been a year full of challenges and unknowns. In the first case when he was identified (with COVID), we have all the suspects. Half of us were suspects because she was a colleague who identified the first case and she came the next day. We didn't know who the contact was, whether she was infected or not. She's been isolated for two weeks. But the rest of us who had contacts that day, part of the clinic staff, we were all isolated until she had the test. At 8: 00 p.m., he took the test and at 24: 00 p.m. he got the result and then after her negative appearance, the rest of us started getting out of isolation”, he said.

Kosovo University Clinical Hospital Service Director Valbon Krasniqi says Kosovo has managed well the COVID-19 pandemic. According to him, they have worked in three ways to get to this point.

Kosovo has made good management of the COVID-19 pandemic. We successfully managed to manage the COVID-19 pandemic. I would call it in all aspects, including the epidemiological and clinical aspect. We've worked in three ways in this time, at least as the University Clinical Hospital Service in the first place, in infrastructure investments, especially in the change of oxygen systems. There was also a comprehensive reorganization of new beds, you know that during December, November we had over a thousand patients lying in our clinics, we don't have spare hospitals, and it took these that we have reorganized and the third area we worked on has been the reorganization of health staff<1>, Krasniqi said.

The challenge for the health system at the time, according to Krasniqi, was also to provide protective equipment for health professionals.

Krasniqi, who was part of the Infectious Clinic on March 13th which was the main address for treating patients with COVID, showed how preparations had started at this clinic to deal with this pandemic.

Even after a year of meeting with COVID, Valbon Krasniqi says he had not believed that the pandemic would last until now.

“was a new virus, with many unknowns, today exactly one year that the first two cases confirmed in Kosovo were laid down at the Infectious Clinic, so they came on 12 March and the next day 13 March were confirmed in the microbiological laboratory as the first cases with COVID. We as health professionals have been preparing for this pandemic since January and February, and at first, the preparations involved protecting the health staff to be treated. Then they started the treatment challenges which drugs were going to be used, and the world didn't have a unified protocol, some countries used other drugs and others gradually started to clear things up. None of us have imagined, or I'm talking to ourselves, that maybe this pandemic will last so long, however the virus has managed to survive all the calendar year seasons and now a year after the first case we're still in the pandemic”, Krasniqi said.

In the struggle with pandemics in Kosovo, health professionals were. High numbers were also infected with coronarys, and unfortunately some even lost their lives.

Federation of Health Union Chairman Blerim Syla said the health system in Kosovo has not been prepared to face this virus at all.

Syla says no one knew how to behave against this virus that swept the world.

“We started with one or two devices The PCR, with a flawed framework that started from dedictation and a very small number of tests, so this has made this little number of tests to increase the number of undictated infected. Space has really been very small and the oxygen system has really been to wish for, so there have been challenges that are the hardest. Adding to it that we then had no protocols and always relied on protocols from outside O We were almost totally unprepared, with only a few vitamins we could offer patients, and then it was really a serious situation for health professionals themselves. It's been a challenge because we didn't even know how to behave that an unknown enemy and actually there was an infection of health workers”, Syla stressed.

He said that since he did not have much knowledge of this invisible enemy's health, medical visits increased significantly, and this caused greater burden to the health system.

Syla, in a confession to Kosova Prees, has said that early in the first cases of pandemic, medical safety equipment has also been lacking.

Unfortunately, the number of infected from last year has exceeded 4 thousand health workers indiscriminately here, doctors, nurses and support staff and the death toll is over 30. We haven't had enough protection, just one example. I'm giving them the first few days. It's been a reminder that there's been workers around Customs. It's had to provide food itself. The institutions have done nothing, they've done nothing, they've been doing nothing, they've been wearing two-to-three days clothes, so I think the situation has been very difficult”, Syla said.

In contrast, the total number of positive cases with COVID in the country is 76,110 cases out of 348,381 suspected persons in the SARS-CoV-2 virus and 1.688 cases of death. The total number of cures to date total 63,892 cases, while the number of active cases is 10,530.