BAKU, Azerbaijan, Feb. 6
By Nargiz Sadikhova - Trend:
Kazakhstan has prohibited export of surgical masks to China, Spokesman for Kazakhstan's Health Ministry Dias Akhmetsharip said, Trend reports with reference to Kazakh media.
Akhmetsharip said that selling medical masks by manufacturers to China is unethical.
“We would like to highlight the unethical behavior of surgical masks manufacturers and distributors. They were selling masks to China, which is why Kazakh government introduced the export prohibition. We currently also are considering import of surgical masks due to inability of local manufacturers to meet the increasing demand,” he said.
He also answered the question of who is to wear the masks.
“There is no necessity to wear the mask if the person does not have any sickness symptoms,” Akhmetsharip said.
The outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan - which is an international transport hub - began at a fish market in late December 2019. Since then over 560 people have died and over 28,000 people have been confirmed as infected. Some sources claim the coronavirus outbreak started as early as November 2019.
The symptoms include cough, headache, fatigue, fever, aching and difficulty breathing. It is primarily spread through airborne contact or contact with contaminated objects.
Chinese health authorities say that the majority of the people who have died were either elderly or had underlying health problems.
Aside from Mainland China, the cases of coronavirus spreading have also been confirmed in Japan, Singapore, Thailand, South Korea, Hong Kong, Australia, Germany, the US, Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam, Macau, France, Canada, the UAE, India, Italy, Russia, Philippines, the UK, Nepal, Cambodia, Belgium, Spain, Finland, Sweden and Sri Lanka.
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