Zelensky, Duda discuss consequences of coronavirus and evacuation of Ukrainians

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky had a phone conversation with President of the Republic of Poland Andrzej Duda on Wednesday evening, the president’s press service has reported.
"The main topic of the conversation was coordination of efforts to prevent negative consequences for citizens of the two countries due to the spread of the coronavirus pandemic in the world," the report says.

The president informed of the measures taken by Ukraine to preserve people's health.

Zelensky thanked Duda for the fact that Polish health care institution provided free assistance to Ukrainian citizens who had COVID-19 coronavirus infection confirmed in Poland.

In response to the appeal by the Ukrainian president, Duda assured that the Polish side will do everything necessary to ensure that all Ukrainian citizens return home freely, both from Western European countries via Poland and from Poland itself. Both railway and air transport will be used for this purpose.

The parties agreed to continue the highest level contacts in the future.

As Ukrinform reported, the World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11 declared the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) a pandemic.

Starting from March 12, a quarantine has been introduced in Ukraine for three weeks, as well a package of anti-epidemic measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the country.

On March 14, the Cabinet of Ministers approved a resolution to temporarily ban foreigners from entering Ukraine and close international passenger traffic from 00:00 on March 16 until April 3, 2020.

As of March 18, 14 cases of Covid-19 infection were confirmed in Ukraine, two of them were lethal.