More than a dozen children with disabilities have been infected with coronavirus in Belarus – just weeks after the country’s president dismissed fears about the coronavirus.
At least 10 staff members as well as 13 children had contracted the virus at the Vesnova orphanage in the central Hlusk district as of Thursday, reports Daily Mail.
The centre is home to 147 young people with severe disabilities and weak immune systems.
Ministers are now being urged to move those who have fallen ill to hotels and other accommodation, despite Alexander Lukashenko’s recent dismissal of the seriousness of the virus.
“The situation was ‘critical’ and that some of the children were ‘extremely ill’”, said Adi Roche, founder of Irish charity Chernobyl Children International.
‘There are no painkillers, no cough bottles. We are really worried and we feel we cannot abandon the children,’ she told Irish Public broadcaster RTE.
