Covid-19, EU – Baltic States, Latvia, Medicine

The official said that the workload of the SPKC has greatly increased in recent weeks, but in general, the center has been working under increased workload for six months now.

The SPKC is coping with its responsibilities by re-profiling employees to control infectious diseases in order to be able to conduct an initial survey of Covid-19-infected people, track infection chains, and so on. The application Apturi Covid helps the center in identifying infected contacts.

Gavare hopes that with the EUR 113,351 allocated by the government this year, it will be possible to create a new department of the SPKC, attract five epidemiologists to work, and improve the use of information technology.

According to Gavare, employees and students of the Ministry of Health could be "borrowed" to fulfill the functions of the five new employees that the center has envisaged.

The head of the SPKC hopes that the restrictions introduced by the government will yield results within two weeks and that the spread of Covid-19 in Latvia will not be so rapid, which would allow the SPKC to normalize its work.