During its extraordinary meeting held on Wednesday under the chairmanship of His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah at Seif Palace, the cabinet has taken a package of decisions to face the novel coronavirus, COVID 19, as follows:

First: Suspending all government and private schools, colleges, universities and military colleges, and Awqaf and Islamic Affairs educational centers as of March 1, 2020 until March 12, 2020.

Second: Tasking the Kuwait Supply Company with supplying local markets with sufficient quantities of face-masks to be used by citizens and expats to curb infection.

Third: Assigning the Social Affairs Ministry, in coordination with the Union of Consumer Cooperative Societies, to make available all sterilization products in all cooperative societies.

Fourth: Demanding the World Health Organization to send a specialized global medical team as soon as possible to review and assess measures taken by the state bodies to control the new coronavirus and offer their advice and recommendations.

Fifth: Assigning Acting Minister of State for National Assembly Affairs to coordinate with the Speaker to hold a special session of the parliament to allow the government to brief lawmakers about its measures to combat the virus.

Sixth: Urging all citizens and expats to avoid gatherings, which may help spread infection and the epidemic, and embody constructive cooperation as well as understand measures aiming to ensure their safety and protection from the disease, and ignore rumors and untrue information circulated.

Earlier, the cabinet has followed up the developments of the spread of the novel coronavirus after the confirmation of some cases in Kuwait and the outbreak of the disease in some other countries all over the world, mainly in the Arabian Gulf region.

The cabinet listened to a presentation by Minister of Health Dr. Sheikh Bassel Al-Sabah, head of the taskforce tasked with watching the developments of the disease, on the current implementation of the emergency plan and the precautionary measures to cure the confirmed cases in Kuwait who came from Iran.

He noted that the infected cases have been moved to a well-equipped government hospital to get treatment.

The minister stressed that those who have infected with the virus are in stable condition, referring that all necessary steps are taken, in collaboration with the Foreign Ministry, to evacuate all nationals who are in the infected countries, test them and place them under obligatorily quarantine. In addition, the ministers listened to some presentations by a number of ministers on the measures by the government bodies to face the spread of the coronavirus and means of coordination to achieve the desired goals.

The cabinet expressed its appreciation to the efforts by officials at the Ministry of Health and all government bodies to fight the virus.