Kluge commends Kazakhstan for testing probable COVID-19 patients in WHO referral labs

NUR-SULTAN. KAZINFORM – Dr. Hans Kluge, Director of the European Regional Bureau of the World Health Organization (WHO) said the organization has introduced new ICD codes for the coronavirus infection, Kazinform reports.

While addressing an online press briefing of the Central Communications Service of Kazakhstan Friday, Dr. Kluge said after generating new knowledge about COVID-19 and ways to fight it, the WHO has introduced the new ICD codes.

In his address, Dr. Kluge also touched upon the reports on the recent spike in pneumonia cases in Kazakhstan and said one of the explanations is that it is COVID-19. He thanked Kazakhstan’s health authorities for cooperation and readiness to test probable COVID-19 patients with pneumonia at the WHO referral laboratories. He believes that the new ICDs will help correctly classify the patients with potential COVID-19 cases.

According to the Director of the WHO European Regional Bureau, the process of generating codes of diseases goes hand in hand with training of healthcare personnel. It is of paramount importance that every country in the European region and beyond classifies the diseases in accordance with the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) as this is crucial for transparent, standardized health information and evidence-based policy making, he stressed.

Recall that Kazakhstan will combine the COVID-19 and pneumonia cases starting from August 1 and release the aggregate statistics.