Source of 7 coronavirus cases detected in Georgia last week, still unknown
By Natalia Kochiashvili
Wednesday, July 22
During the last week, 24 cases of covid-19 were detected in Gardabani municipality. According to Amiran Gamkrelidze, head of the National Center for Disease Control (NCDC), the epidemiological situation in Gardabani municipality is quite significant. Epidemiologists and the members of the Georgian government held an Inter-agency Coordination Council meeting yesterday.
“6 of them are from 3 villages in the town of Gardabani, Gachiani settlement, and 4 of them are in Karataklia and 14 in Karajalari,” Gamkrelidze reported, adding that the highest number of cases is recorded in the village of Karajalar with population of 4000. Note that 2% of the cases recorded in the country as of July 21st fall on Gardabani municipality. Meanwhile, there are 5 cases in Tbilisi, the sources of two have not yet been identified.
“No decision has been made on the closure, a decision has been made on thermal screening at the Gachiani entry points and also on extended testing of the population in this region and, in particular, in the Gachiani settlement,” Gamkrelidze said.
Thus, the extended testing started in the villages of Karajalari and Karataklia in Gardabani Municipality yesterday. According to Gamkrelidze, as of yesterday morning about 107 people from the mentioned villages of Gardabani municipality have been examined and 24 positive cases have been registered so far. 94 people have been quarantined.
Gamkrelidze says 600-700 biological samples will be taken daily this week and the close contacts of the infected will be quarantined to timely suppress the small epidemic we have and prevent the spread of infection, ‘because these people are very active, they work in different markets’.
NCDC head believes that the markets like Lilo, Dinamo markets and food markets should be closely monitored and thermal screening should be conducted, in order to determine cases at an early stage.
He confirmed that the family members of the 16th patient, 72-year-old man with quite severe chronic disease, who died of coronavirus in Georgia on 20th of July are also infected, their clinical condition is satisfactory.
At the same time, according to Gamkrelidze, the family members of the deceased worked at several markets, due to which the Coordination Council decided to tighten the measures at the markets at yesterday’s meeting: “In particular, thermo screening is necessary, where people with relevant symptoms will be identified, tested and contacts will be found, ”Gamkrelidze said.
At the same time, the source of infection of the dead 72-year-old man is still unknown.
In general, 63 new cases of coronavirus have been detected in Georgia over the past week, 20 of them are truck drivers. The source of 7 out of 63 cases registered in the last week is still unknown.
Georgia has reported 10 new cases of the coronavirus earlier yesterday, bringing the total number of cases to 1,049. 903 of them have recovered, while 16 others have died.
The head of the NCDCl, also informed the public that at this stage there are already several promising vaccines against coronavirus. He reported that one of the promising vaccines is the vaccine created by the British Oxford Group, which has passed a 3rd stage of research. Now the research will be conducted on a larger group of about 10-15 000 people. According to Gamkrelidze, Its ability to elicit a fairly good immune response has already been established and if the safety is established as well, the vaccine may already be available.
At the same time, Gamkrelidze says that work is underway with the British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant ‘AstraZeneca’ and ‘Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance’ so that when the vaccine appears on the market, Georgia will be among the recipients. Gamkrelidze informed that Gavi is a large international organization, the Global Alliance for Vaccines, which is funded by the Bill Gates Foundation and is one of the largest contributors to the supply of vaccines to developing countries. He added that Georgia has been in contact with Gavi for a long time, because through Gavi many new vaccines have been introduced in the country.
