BISSAU (Reuters) - More than 170 of Guinea-Bissau's 2,000 wellbeing laborers have contracted COVID-19, a World Health Organization master said on Tuesday, notice that emergency clinics were near being overpowered.

The small West African country's under-prepared social insurance framework has been battling to check the spread of the novel coronavirus, which has contaminated more than 1,400 individuals and slaughtered 15. Wellbeing specialists have raised the caution over an absence of oxygen to treat patients.

"The three fundamental Bissau clinics are as of now confronting rooms loaded up with COVID-19 patients and a breakdown in basic clinical administrations," said Joana Cortez, a WHO master in Guinea-Bissau, during an online workshop on the effect of the plague on Portuguese-speaking African nations.

Cortez said 176 wellbeing laborers in the nation had tried positive for the coronavirus. That adds up to almost 9% of the nation's absolute clinical staff of around 2,000, as indicated by Reuters estimations dependent on figures from the wellbeing specialists.

"It is a disordered circumstance," Cortez said.

Wellbeing laborers are helpless due to an absence of top notch defensive apparatus, as indicated by Tumane Balde, who heads an interministerial COVID-19 commission.

Last Updated on: Jun 18, 2025