Tajik Leader Says Country Has No Virus But Urges Precautions

Tajikistan's authoritarian leader Emomali Rakhmon said Tuesday that the coronavirus pandemic had ended in his impoverished Central Asian country but warned citizens to remain vigilant

Dushanbe (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 26th Jan, 2021 ) :Tajikistan's authoritarian leader Emomali Rakhmon said Tuesday that the coronavirus pandemic had ended in his impoverished Central Asian country but warned citizens to remain vigilant.

The poorest country in the former Soviet Union has officially recorded just over a dozen new coronavirus cases and no deaths since the start of the year, but health experts have cast doubt over the statistics and testing is not widespread.

Official data has for more than two weeks shown 13,308 infections with 90 deaths and 13,218 recoveries -- figures that suggest no active cases.

"We can say with confidence that there is no coronavirus in Tajikistan," Rakhmon said in an address to parliament.

"We shouldn't relax and forget about the rules of personal and public hygiene," the 68-year-old president cautioned.

"If we open more flights, people will come to us. Therefore, everyone who enters the republic, including our citizens, must be in quarantine under the supervision of family doctors at home for a period of 14 days."