MOSCOW, June 4. /TASS/. The fight against the novel coronavirus pandemic should help establish a reaction algorithm for inevitable outbreaks of diseases in the future, head of the Russian Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing Anna Popova said during an online discussion held within the Valdai Discussion Club.
"It is important to understand how we can accumulate experience, how to draw conclusions from this difficult life period for the whole planet, perhaps. We must not miss anything, we should unite and form a consolidated algorithm for next time. It is absolutely obvious that there is going to be a next time," she said.
Popova noted that it is unclear so far who will be affected by the next outbreak. "We must have an algorithm of actions, and it should not be applicable to just one country. It should be a common algorithm that we could use, or several algorithms for different situations, for different types of infection. Or at least for those types that we know of today," she explained.
Head of the Russian federal service noted that the experience in combating the Ebola outbreak had helped experts to deal with the novel coronavirus pandemic. "The work experience accumulated during previous outbreaks and during the serious situation with the Ebola fever has helped us coordinate ourselves faster and understand where our efforts and lab services would be most needed," the official said.
Popova also stressed that Russia had formed fruitful professional relations with colleagues from different states at a very high level. "I think that we have always approached it in this way, maybe that’s the Russian approach: during hard times, we must unite, we must unite our efforts," she concluded.
In late December 2019, Chinese officials notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in every corner of the globe, including Russia.
On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. According to the latest statistics, over 6,586,000 people have been infected worldwide and more than 388,200 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 3,181,000 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.
To date, a total of 441,108 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, with 204,623 patients having recovered from the disease. Russia’s latest data indicates 5,384 fatalities nationwide. Earlier, the Russian government set up an Internet hotline to keep the public updated on the coronavirus situation.