Tunis
– Tunisia’s Prime Minister Elyes Fakhfakh has announced that a lockdown to
fight the spread of coronavirus will be extended to 3 May before it is
progressively eased.
The situation will “soon be
mastered”, Fakhfakh declared in a televised interview late on Sunday,
saying this would allow for a step-by-step re-opening of the economy and
society.
Tunisia has been under a 18:00 to
06:00 curfew since 17 March and authorities imposed stricter lockdown orders on
22 March.
“Up to now we have been
successful,” Fakhfakh said.
“But we are not yet
through” the pandemic, he warned, declaring that “we want to flatten
the curve” of the number of infections.
Since the country confirmed its
first case of the respiratory disease in early March, Tunisia has declared 38
deaths from the virus among 879 confirmed infections.
With the advent of Ramadan, the
curfew will begin two hours later, at 20:00.
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