Minister of National Defence Tea Banh and several senior military officers held a virtual conference on Tuesday with Banh’s Vietnamese counterpart General Ngo Xuan Lich to discuss the two countries’ cooperation in the Covid-19 fight.
Banh told The Post on Tuesday that he thanked Vietnam for providing medical materials to Cambodia to help the Kingdom fight the virus. Both sides also discussed other issues on which cooperation was needed.
He said the conversation took place because he hadn’t communicated with Xuan Lich for a long time.
“The conversation was aimed at coming to a mutual understanding of what needs cooperation. I also thanked the Vietnamese for helping us control Covid together.
“[Because Vietnam] controlled it well, Cambodian trainees were sent to study there. The conversation proved beneficial to countries on both sides. We only discussed our cooperative efforts.”
Although Banh said Cambodia and Vietnam had cooperated well in the fight against Covid-19, Cambodia’s Ministry of Health denied a previous Vietnamese Ministry of Health report which claimed that passengers from Cambodia with Covid-19 had travelled to Vietnam.
Cambodia’s Ministry of Health blamed its Vietnamese counterpart for not informing Cambodia before it went public with the information. According to the health ministry, the false report seriously affected the Cambodian government’s efforts to contain Covid-19.
The health ministry recently reported that another Covid-19 patient had recovered and left the hospital, bringing the total number of recoveries in the Kingdom to 273 of 274 patients.
Over the last 30 days, Cambodia had reported one imported Covid-19 case after inbound flights from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia were temporarily suspended because of the high number of such cases from those countries.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Hun Sen took to Facebook to urge all teachers and students to adhere to Covid-19 prevention measures.
Hun Sen said that teachers have to continue to teach students to wash their hands with soap, sanitising gel and alcohol and wear face masks as advised by the health ministry.
The prime minister’s message came a day after the second stage of school reopenings in the Kingdom on Monday.
Students in Grades 9-12 were allowed to return to school throughout the country while kindergartens and primary schools reopened in Kratie, Stung Treng, Ratanakkiri and Mondulkiri provinces.
Regarding the disease, UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres wrote a letter thanking Hun Sen for his efforts in combating the pandemic, and specifically for sending doctors and humanitarian task forces to several countries to assist vulnerable people there.
