LA PAZ, Jan. 5 (Xinhua) -- Bolivian President Luis Arce on Tuesday guaranteed the availability of the financial resources needed to carry out the government's Strategic Plan to Fight COVID-19, according to the Ministry of Health and Sports.
"In keeping with the guidelines to tackle the pandemic, at a meeting with governors and mayors, we presented the actions and mechanisms that will allow us to identify positive cases to address them and contain the virus, within the framework of the Strategic Plan to Fight COVID-19," said Arce.
To effectively tackle the novel coronavirus pandemic, it is necessary to ensure regional (department) and local government budgets have the funding to hire healthcare workers, and purchase hospital supplies and equipment, said Arce.
His government has earmarked more than 274 million bolivianos (about 39 million U.S. dollars) for regional governments to immediately begin hiring healthcare workers, he added.
Regional governments will be in charge of distributing vaccines against COVID-19 purchased by the central government, while municipal governments will be in charge of undertaking the diagnostic tests, according to the plan.
The Bolivian departments of La Paz (west) and Santa Cruz (east), the country's two most populated and prosperous, have reported a rebound in COVID-19 cases.
Bolivia reported a total of 163,671 confirmed cases of the virus as of Monday and 9,219 deaths from the disease since the onset of the pandemic almost 10 months ago. Enditem