Kuwait lists 41 COVID deaths in three days

Kuwait calls for continuing int’l efforts against HIV

KUWAIT: Kuwait has reported 41 deaths in three days while hospital occupancy continued to increase as the country fights to curb a surge in COVID-19 infections. The health ministry announced yesterday recording 11 deaths in the previous 24 hours, compared to 18 on Friday and 12 on Saturday, raising total fatalities to 2,100. Meanwhile, total cases rose to 374,104 as 1,555 new ones were announced yesterday, compared to 1,617 on Friday and 1,705 a day before. The number of active cases stood at 18,068 as of yesterday, down from 18,252 on Friday and 18,390 on Thursday. The number of hospitalized patients announced yesterday was 1,169 including 326 in intensive care units, up from 321 patients on Friday and 316 a day before. Total recoveries reached 353,936 as of yesterday when 1,728 fresh recoveries were announced, while 1,737 were announced on Friday and 1,621 on Thursday.

Fighting HIV

In other news, Kuwait called on Friday to continue working on fighting HIV/AIDS, and exchange information and experiences in this field to combat this virus. This came in the speech of State of Kuwait delivered by Chancellor Tahani Al-Nasser during the UN General Assembly’s special session discussing ways of fighting HIV/AIDS. In the speech, Nasser welcomed the UN secretary general’s report on fighting AIDS issued on March 31. She expressed thanks to the important information mentioned in the report explaining the progress made in fulfilling the commitments made in the 2016 Political Declaration.

Many countries have fulfilled their commitments in terms of access to health services, advanced diagnostic and treatment technologies, and enhancing the performance of health systems in general, she added. This contributed to a 39 percent decrease in deaths from AIDS-related causes from 2010 to 2019, while HIV infections decreased by 23 percent since 2010, she added. On the other hand, Chancellor Nasser expressed disappointment that progress is still far below the level of global commitments for many reasons, most notably the lack of investment in comprehensive HIV prevention and other social and humanitarian constraints. This led to an increase in the number of new infections recently, compared to the previous years.

820,000 deaths

Since 2016, an additional 3.5 million people were infected, and 820,000 people have died, she explained, stressing the importance of strengthen cooperation between relevant agencies and bodies. In her speech, the Chancellor stressed that Kuwait realizes the importance of prevention and care for HIV cases. Kuwait has formed a multi-sectoral high-level national committee to combat AIDS, this developed strategic plan that focused on prevention, education and treatment, she noted. Nasser praised Kuwait as being one of the pioneering countries that has a number of preventive laws against the HIV/AIDS, in addition of participating in International activities, conferences, and meetings in this field.