New mayor faces challenge to contain swine flu amid anger over pollution www.zgm.mn
Yesterday, the Citizens’ Representative Council of the Capital City (CRCC) elected the next Mayor of Ulaanbaatar city after finally rising from a political deadlock. Munkhchuluun Samdannyam, the newly elected Mayor of Ulaanbaatar city, now faces a burdening challenge of tackling the swine flu outbreak.
Mr. Munkhchuluun had a tight run against Amarsaikhan Sainbuyan, former Head of CRCC as the poll ended in a tie and the re-poll was in favor of Munkhculuun, who self-nominated himself at the meeting, with 24 to 43 votes. As for Amarsaikhan, the board of Mongolian People’s Party nominated him on December 28, but the election had to be postponed because the CRCC could not form the quorum.
After the appointment of Mr. Munkhchuluun, the CRCC put “Swine flu and influenza outbreak issues” as the next item on the order list, before the appointment of the next Head of CRCC. In the first week of this year, a total of 4,136 instances out of 57,508 ambulatory care were diagnosed with influenza or similar illness in the capital city alone. 35.6 percent of patients were infants aged 0 to 1, 26.8 percent were aged 2 to 4 and 14.4 percent were aged 5 to 9. Out of 3,098 calls at children’s emergency services, 59.5 percent were influenza or similar illness calls.
Additionally, the Cabinet resolved to grant 3-5 days of paid time off to parents and child guardians, who have a child suffering from influenza, at its regular meeting yesterday. After calling for private entities to support the implementation of the resolution, the Cabinet informed that the decision will be effective until March 16. Also, Minister of Health and other related officials were ordered to make local medical centers work on Saturdays until March 16.
Published Date:2019-01-17