How is it that Kovit is in a country where there is no official case of the disease | The world

Syed Gurbanov (not his real name) could not breathe. His breath was gone: it was as if he had run a marathon, and his chest could not bear the pain.

Gurbanov had all the hallmarks of a new corona virus. But there was a problem: there were officially no patients like him in Turkmenistan..

When Gurbanov called an ambulance last month, the doctor said he had pneumonia. And urgently need to go to the hospital. Gurbanov was aware that the country’s doctors refer to Govt-19 cases as pneumonia.

On the way to the hospital, he was able to call the clinic where he had taken the Govit-19 test a few days earlier. “Positive,” he heard a low voice say. “Which is positive?” Gurbanov shouted, “Is this Kovit Thana?” The answer is “yes”.

Gurbanov later discovered that he would never receive printed evidence for this diagnosis. Tests with positive results have not been officially announced in the country.

She refused to see him because he was all over the hospital from the first time he went.

“I’m almost dead on the way,” Gurbanov recalled. “Shortness of breath … the virus progressed so fast. I started knocking on the window and said, ‘Please stop, I can’t breathe.’ They gave me oxygen, but it didn’t help much. ”

The next hospital refused to admit him because this time it was banned from receiving unregistered patients in the capital Ashgabat.

“I started to panic. I asked the doctor, ‘What should I do? Will I die here?'”

Gurbanov called a doctor he knew and asked for help. After several phone calls and heated conversations, he was finally admitted.

His condition did not change for five days.

“I could not breathe – it was as if everything was stuck inside me. I could not breathe and panicked. It was like I was drowning and could not come to the surface again.. ”

Gurbanov yelled at the nurses to give him something to ease the pain.

Going to the hospital for treatment in Turkmenistan is not always enough, he says. Doctors usually ignore patients and do not examine them unless the nurses call someone superior..

While some nurses care for more than 60 people, the hospital is understaffed. There were times when even a cleaning lady was injected, he says..

The nurses shared stories of patients passing by and dying in front of them due to the lack of ventilators Available and oxygen machines did not work. Doctors changed Gurbano’s treatment several times.

He spent about US $ 2,000 (R $ 10.6 thousand) on a large sum of drugs and bribes in Turkmenistan, and was released 10 days later.

The media abroad and those who disagree with the state are now reporting a third wave of infections in the country, but almost everyone living in Turkmenistan is afraid to speak out.

The news website Turkmen.news has identified more than 60 people who have died in Govt-19 since the outbreak. Authorities have not been notified of the corona virus infection.

President Gurbanguli Bertimugammedov, a former dentist, uses the image of a healthy country as his main state propaganda weapon. Acknowledging that the country is affected by the epidemic would undermine the legitimacy of your rule.

However, last year a lawsuit almost ended the cover-up campaign.. A Turkish ambassador in Ashgabat was unwell. Kemal Ukun had the usual symptoms of corona virus: chest pain, sweating, fever. He was diagnosed with pneumonia.

His wife, Cusite Ukun, sent X-rays of his chest to Turkish hospitals, all of which confirmed he had Govit-19.

She tried to take Ukuna back to Turkey, but the Turkmen authorities refused to allow her to travel by plane with medical infrastructure. It was several hours before he died and permission was not granted.

Ukunin’s body was embalmed and experts could not find any traces of the corona virus.

Turkmen authorities have introduced some isolated measures to prevent the spread of the disease. But the government is strengthening it, and thanks to its “preventive measures” the country is without Govt-19.

None of the staff at the hospital where Gurbanov was admitted used the words govt or corona virus, he said. “They said ‘this virus’ or ‘this disease,'” he recalled. “I pressed them, ‘Why didn’t you tell me what it was? Is this Govt?’ And they shook their heads quietly. “

When I was in the hospital, Gurbanov received a text message from the government advising people to wear masks as there is dust in the air, with health warnings..

“Are we dying from the dust?” He says. “They will allow people to die, but they will never admit that Govt exists.”

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