Only 12 out of 1,200 frontline paramedics of Dubai Corporation for Ambulance Services, DCAS, tested positive for coronavirus, five of them fully recovered and returned to perform their duties, said Khalifa Hassan Al Drai, the Corporation's Executive Director.

Al Dari made the remarks during a remote press conference organised today by the Dubai Government Media Office, on the updates related to efforts to contain coronavirus, COVID-19 in Dubai.

Al Dari attributed the few infections among the DCAS staff to the adequate measures taken to protect the staff members, including top quality Personal Protective Equipment, PPE, and regular sterilisation procedures at the beginning and end of every mission.

He added that DCAS raised its capacity from five ambulance vehicles dedicated to coronavirus, to 26 vehicles, with 130 other fully equipped ambulances lined up to deal with regular medical emergencies, like heart attacks.

He also said that DCAS recently launched the first special capsule to transport critical cases of people with communicable diseases, including cases of the emerging Coronavirus.

Omar Bu Shahab, Chairman of the Dubai Food Security Committee, assured that the UAE attaches great importance to food security and had long taken drastic steps to ensure that long term strategic stocks of food commodities is available.

"To achieve that, teams were created to ensure safety of supplies, expected consumption patterns, and price monitoring for basic commodities," he added.

On how food imports and exports are handled at these exceptional times, he said one of the Committee's key mandates is to provide solutions to mitigate any impacts, including diversifying the sources and resuming cargo flights to deliver the needed quantities of food items.

"Dubai has a strong logistics infrastructure and has multiple international destinations globally. These have allowed Dubai to find alternative markets after some countries stopped exporting food," he said.

He revealed that under the current situation, Dubai provided two-month rental exemptions on display platforms at a total value of AED 47 million to food suppliers, while making available 58 standard and cold stores on a 1.4 million square metre area.

News Source :http://wam.ae/en/details/1395302838748