The Bahraini Red Crescent Society (BRCS) organized an awareness workshop to educate its volunteers about how to tackle the emerging coronavirus Covid-19. This workshop comes within the framework of the society’s support for the national drive in the Kingdom of Bahrain to prevent this virus and within a series of awareness and training workshops organized by the society for its volunteers.
Miss Maysar Al Sabri, head of the Health Awareness Committee of the Society, gave the lecture at the workshop in which she addressed main important points related to tackling Coronavirus. These main points included the appropriate ways to prevent the virus, the importance of community participation, ways to limit the spread and control of the virus and how to reach out to community members to change the wrong behavior, in addition to providing psychological first aid to patients infected with the coronavirus.
The workshop discussed the importance of fighting the rumors related to this virus, and the steps for intervention and participation effectively in community discussions. This included how to ask the right questions and answer community questions about coronavirus and methods to control it.
Main preventive measures to tackle coronavirus were introduced in the workshop. The most important of these methods were washing hands regularly and several times with soap and water, maintaining a distance of not less than one meter (3 feet) with anyone coughing or sneezing, and not touching the surfaces because if the hands are contaminated, they may transfer the virus to the eyes, nose, or mouth, and the virus can enter the body. This is in addition to stressing the importance to follow good respiratory hygiene practices, which means covering the mouth and nose with a bent elbow or a tissue when coughing or sneezing, then dispose of the used tissue immediately.
Miss Maysar Al Sabri concluded the workshop by advising the volunteers of the importance of rational use of medical masks to avoid wasting valuable resources, as people without respiratory symptoms such as coughing should not use medical masks. WHO recommends the use of medical masks for people with symptoms of coronavirus and those who care for people with symptoms such as cough and fever. In addition to this, the use of the medical mask is extremely important for healthcare providers when dealing with a patient at home or in a health care facility.