May 27 (SeeNews) - The World Bank has approved a $100 million (91 million euro) loan to assist Serbia in preventing, detecting and responding to the pandemic of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), it said.
Serbia will use the financing to establish two walk-in COVID-19 testing points at Belgrade and Nis airports and up to ten drive-through points at border crossings, while the country's testing capacity will be increased to at least 9,000 tests a day from 7,000 currently, the World Bank said in a statement on Tuesday.
Two further regional laboratories will be established - one at the Clinical Centre of Vojvodina in Novi Sad and one at the Clinical Centre in Kragujevac - with a capacity of 1,000 samples daily, increasing Serbia’s total COVID-19 testing capacity to about 130 tests per 100,000 population per day, the World Bank said.
"Boosting testing capacity, while strengthening capacity to diagnose COVID-19, intensive care units, and the e-reporting system for COVID-19 will give the Government of Serbia the capability to adjust infection control measures on the basis of lessons learned," the World Bank Country Manager for Serbia, Stephen Ndegwa, said in the statement.
The World Bank will also support Serbia in procuring additional protective gear, in integrating laboratories testing for COVID-19 into one electronic reporting system and strengthening the diagnostic imaging capacity as well as intensive care and isolation units, the lender said.
Under the project, known as the Serbia Emergency COVID-19 Response Project, Serbia will strengthen its surveillance system and epidemiological capacity for early detection and confirmation of cases, helping the country strengthen risk assessment and providing on-time data and information for guiding decision-making, response and mitigation activities.
($ = 0.908498 euro)