Kyrgyz volunteers came to rescue as virus raged

Volunteers have played a major role in dealing with a tsunami of coronavirus cases that has hit Kyrgyzstan this month, causing country's outdated and poorly funded health care system to nearly collapse.

It wasn't until after Kyrgyz authorities lifted a tight lockdown in late May that epidemic started to unravel among ex-Soviet country's population of 6.5 million.

By that time, tight lockdown imposed in late March - with curfews, heavy police presence and little monetary support from government to those lost ir incomes - h started to take a toll.

Authorities started to ease lockdown restrictions in early May, when country reported a little over 1,000 coronavirus cases and 12 deaths.

Frustration with lockdown mounted, and as offices, markets and malls re-opened and public transportation resumed, people rushed to get back to ir normal life.

Masks and social distancing were no longer part of it, but big family events, typical for a Central Asian nation - weddings and funerals attended by 200-300 people - were.

Several weeks later, health officials started reporting several hundred new cases every day inste of dozens.

In July, when government included suspected, but not confirmed cases into count, hundreds turned into over 1,000 a day.

country's teetering healthcare system, with only 2,036 hospital beds prepared for virus patients by late June, started to collapse under a massive influx of patients.

By late July, Kyrgyzstan h recorded over 33,000 cases of coronavirus - 20 times more than when it was emerging from lockdown - and more than 1,300 deaths.

Patients complained about not being able to get into a hospital due to shortages of beds; ambulance service not picking up phone; lines in pharmacies and outpatient facilities lasting for hours, if not days, on end.

As problems became more apparent, thousands of ordinary people rushed to help.

Hotel and restaurant owners converted ir closed venues into day hospitals and night patient facilities.

At such night-time facilities, patients stay overnight, receive treatment such as IV rapy and injections, and leave in morning

Activists started supplying medical workers with protective gear, drugs, medical equipment, food and water.

In several weeks, almost 600 people joined online chat of group that dubbed itself 'Toger'.

Several-dozen of m regularly worked as orderlies at seven Bishkek hospitals and at night drove people who couldn't get an ambulance to hospitals.

Many in Bishkek rushed to tackle most acute problem -- shortage of ambulances.

Once surge of new infections hit Bishkek, volunteers quickly converted several cars into ambulance-like vehicles equipped with oxygen tanks or oxygen concentrators and started transporting patients in respiratory distress to hospitals.

"We decided to help people during in difficult time", said a former taxi driver Almaz Asseitov who has now been driving people to hospitals as volunteer.

"We have cars and people gave us (oxygen) concentrators so that we can help people."

Asseitov is not only one.

Local online communities and chats last week were abuzz with people offering a ride to hospital or bring an oxygen generator to those in need of stabilising ir oxygen levels.

Ruslan uulu Manasbek, a car importer, spent his own savings on turning his car into a make-shift ambulance.

His business wired during lockdown, so Manasbek spent 140 US dollars - an average salary in Kyrgyzstan in 2019 has been 236 US dollars - on installing an oxygen tank in his car and rearranging seats so that he could transport people with breathing difficulties to hospitals.

Manasbek says he's been driving sick people to hospitals round clock and is trying to avoid contact with his family members

By end of last week, explosive growth of outbreak appeared to have wound down, with daily number of new infections stabilising around 800-900.

On Monday, Kyrgyz health officials reported 483 new infections.

government opened ditional medical facilities in re-purposed spaces, taking some pressure off collapsing health care system, and Russia deployed several medical teams with equipment to help deal with crisis.

Hospitals started reporting smaller numbers of patients, and volunteers - fewer night calls from people gasping for air.

Doctors and experts AP spoke to unanimously credited activists for helping plug holes of country's failing response to pandemic.