Type of Intervention: New Tool / Service / Body, Specific Action
Sectors Involved: Civil Defence, Health
Intervention Categories: Planning and strategy; Listening to scientists or health/other experts
Level of Jurisdiction: National
Lead People/Agency: The members of the National Committee for Communicable Diseases made the recommendations. The implementers include: laboratories and hospitals that conduct PCR tests and treat COVID-19 patients, the Laboratory Committee formed by the Minister of Public Health, expatriates, and different ministries.
Overview: Recommendations of the members of the National Committee for Communicable Diseases. The attendees recommended the following:
1.Adopting a national system for quality control in laboratories that conduct PCR examinations in Lebanon and requesting the Laboratory Committee formed by the Minister of Public Health to establish Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) for these laboratories that include recommendations on the mechanism adopted for pooling and how to analyze the results and requesting the Rafic Hariri University Hospital to cooperate To provide Blind Samples for Specificity and Sensibility under the supervision of the World Health Organization.
2. The proposal to close the country from 15 August until 30 inclusive, to include the Lady’s Day and the occasion of Ashoura.
3. A suggestion to re-activate the use of trackers for expatriates who are asked to quarantine their homes until the results are released.
4. Reconsidering the quarantine period for arrivals to Lebanon by the ministerial committee and studying the percentage of arrivals to Lebanon and their nationalities.
5. Issuing a circular for hospitals and laboratories about reporting the results of foreign residents in Lebanon through the Ministry of Health, Major General Asmar, and the gendarmerie notifications of positive cases from foreign residents by the laboratory and coordinating with the Red Cross to transfer them to approved isolation centers.
6. A breakdown of the numbers of cases registered among health workers in the daily report issued by the epidemiological surveillance program in terms of infection capture: inside or outside the health institution.
Full details here: https://www.moph.gov.lb/en/Media/view/36758/meeting-of-the-national-infectious-disease-committee-
Type of Justification: Advice of INTERNAL government advisory committee or group
Source of Evidence or Justification: National – government