Ethiopia is set to distribute 50 million facemasks to 46,000 schools across the country as part of precaution measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 among students.
The horn African nation announced that it will reopen schools next March with strict preventive measures and the facemasks will be available for free both government and private schools.
It’s been some six months now since all schools including higher education in Ethiopia have been interrupted due to the outbreak of COVID-19.
State Minister of Education, Nebil Mehid said the distribution of the facemasks will commence this week, adding that additional 500,000 facemasks will also be disseminated to teachers throughout the nation.
The state minister pointed out that the facemasks are believed to help combat the spread of COVID-19 pandemic during the face to face teaching and learning process.
Preparations are also underway to distribute COVID-19 testing thermometers to regional states as there are shortages to provide for all schools, he stated.
Over 26 million students have been out of schools, while 46,000 schools were closed due to COVID-19 pandemic in the country, it was learned.
Meanwhile the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in Ethiopia has reached 86,430 until Thursday. 1,312 people in the country have died of the virus as the number of recoveries surged into 40,165.
MG/abj/APA