As Myanmar imposes strict quarantine measures in its battle against coronavirus, the Muslim community has offered its mosques and businesses to be used as care facilities.
All travellers to Myanmar, including citizens and foreign nationals, are quarantined on arrival for 14 days—a measure introduced on Wednesday after the health ministry confirmed the country’s first Covid-19 cases.
Five lethwei stadiums and a meditation centre are among the buildings repurposed to relieve pressure on hospitals.
The Islamic Religious Affairs Council Myanmar is also ready to help, said its general secretary Tin Maung Than, who, with the All Myanmar Islamic Religious Organisation, wrote to the government on March 23 offering places of worships to be used as makeshift hospitals and quarantine bases.
“We can worship in our own homes,” Tin Maung Than told Myanmar Mix. “We are doing this for the good of all the people, so that if they need care for their health they can use it. It is for everyone, for the country.”
Possible sites include a one-acre field in Yangon’s Ahlone township that is usually used for mass prayers during the two annual holidays in the Islamic calendar.
A larger site connected to the Islamic council in Thanlyin township has an existing building for travellers and could possibly cater for 1,000 people, he said.
Similar sites and Muslim-owned hotels across the country can also be turned into quarantine sites, he added.
“We can also use Islamic schools, madrasas,” he said. “Some we have already shut down because of the Covid-19 crisis so the government could turn them into care facilities.
“We haven’t discussed the list of places in detail because the government hasn’t responded yet, but we have a list in mind. I think they will respond when they need more space for care facilities.”
The Muslim community will also donate medical equipment, medicine, and cash to aid organisations, said Tin Maung Than.
Well-known monk Ashin Cekinda offered to the government his meditation centre in Hmawbi township on the outskirts of Yangon as a quarantine centre for about 400 people.
“Buddhist monks, if they can, must always try to assist the people and provide support,” Ashin Cekinda told Myanmar Mix.
Within a day of operation as a quarantine base, the centre became the scene of one of Myanmar’s first confirmed Covid-19 cases.
A 26-year Myanmar national who arrived from the UK on March 22 was quarantined in Hlegu township before being moved to the monastery.
He was then taken to an isolation ward in Yangon’s Waibargi Hospital and tested positive for the virus.
