Covid-19 mission: S3 with Austrian Red Cross

My plan for April was to get some time-out in Sri Lanka, but then I had the opportunity to contribute to the fight the covid-19 outbreak, working fortwo months as S3 at the Austrian Red Cross command staff at Ministry of Health, Vienna.  I was working with many friends, here with the chief of staff, Gerald.  Main task was to coordinate national studies to get more information about the prevalence of this new virus within the Austrian population. Prevalence is a statistic referring to the number of cases of a disease that are present in a particular population at a given time.  Collecting data, gathering information and identifying individuals who are infected is important, in order to stop them passing the virus on and learn more about the ways of this dangerous infection.

Austrian Red Cross is screening all provinces in Austria, collecting some 2,000 samples per flight within one week and delivering them just intime to the viro lab of Vienna General Hospital, (AKH) Department of Laboratory Medicine.  Identifying individuals who are infected is important, in order to stop them passing the virus on.  This is only possible if the project logistic is perfect and coordination and cooperation is as excellent as it is here. All members of Austrian Red Cross, statistic research institutes, Austrian Ministries of Health and Science and AKH Vienna deserve great respect for this achievement.