Prime Minister-interim Ludovic Orban on Tuesday asked the Minister of Health to come up with a quick plan to increase the number of epidemiologists, while underscoring that the risk of a coronavirus spread can be significantly mitigated if epidemiological investigations are being carried out faster.

"Increase the number of doctors involved in epidemiological investigations, find solutions with the 20 graduates who do not currently have jobs. We have epidemiologists who do not have jobs, we need epidemiologists like air. They need to be involved, we need to find solutions, to sign collaboration agreements and find a way to hire epidemiologists. Also, we need to get other categories of physicians involved, who have the ability to carry out such investigations. (...) So we need to increase the numbers and I understood from the Minister of Defence has also mobilized his staff of epidemiologists who, from the area of defence, can be involved and, basically, you have an immediate system of involvement for the conduct of the epidemiological investigations. This, I tell you, can dramatically reduce the risk of spreading, for we will have the ability to run epidemiological investigations quickly to find the people who came in contact and, finally, to establish the people who came in contact with the people who came in contact with a person found positive. The speed is crucial and in order to increase the speed, Mr, Vela, it is not enough to find out the persons, but we must identify them," said Orban, during the Government meeting. AGERPRES (RO - author: Daniel Florea, editor: Claudia Stanescu; EN - author: Cristina Zaharia)