“Tashkent responded to Dushanbe's request and now will build a distribution center for COVID-19 patients,” the Tajik news publication Asia-Plus said in a statement.
The new facility will be built in Kubodiyon district of Khatlon province at a medical center that Uzbekistan is building there. The equipment will be financed by the Uzbekneftegaz company, a source in the Tajik government told Asia-Plus.
"The equipment will make it possible to quickly diagnose coronavirus infection and then send the identified COVID-19 patients to hospitals in the province and the capital," the statement said.
The construction of a medical complex in Kubodiyon was started by Uzbekistan in the second half of 2018. According to the schedule, the facility will be ready to receive patients by spring.
The project of the center was approved during the visit of the President Shavkat Mirziyoyev to Dushanbe in March 2018. Also, a new school for 630 pupils, built by Uzbekistan, was inaugurated in the Spitamen district of Sogd province in September 2020.
In response, the Tajik authorities announced that they would build a school for 640 pupils in Samarkand and a kindergarten in Fergana province. The corresponding order was signed by the President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon in March 2018.
In May 2020, Uzbekistan sent a group of medical workers with experience in treating patients with coronavirus to Tajikistan, and also handed over humanitarian aid since the outbreak of the pandemic.
In addition, Uzbekistan fully funded the construction and equipping of modular hospitals to combat COVID-19 in three provinces of Kyrgyzstan.
The experience of first aid distribution centers for patients with suspected COVID-19 was first tested in Tashkent at the initiative of the Tashkent mayor Jakhongir Artykhodjaev. In July, a medical unit for 500 beds was deployed at Uzexpocentre exhibition complex. In December, distribution centers in the exhibition complex and the Universal sports complex were closed due to the stabilization of the epidemiological situation in the capital.
