Prime Minister Hun Sen appealed to citizens, ministries and institutions on Wednesday to participate in the fight against the spread of Covid-19, even though no Cambodian has so far contracted the virus.

Speaking at a congress to review the Ministry of Health’s work for last year and set goals for this year, the prime minister said Cambodia is also studying measures to be implemented if Covid-19 infected large numbers of people in the Kingdom.

He said: “Since the first outbreak of Covid-19, the work of Cambodia has been to combat the spread of the coronavirus, and that work must be done together.”

Hun Sen said Cambodia had to prepare, plan and implement measures that need to be adopted in case Covid-19 spreads across Cambodia on a large scale.

He said if any commune, district or province has the virus, the government will take the necessary isolation measures by closing schools, religious buildings and traffic going in or out of the location.

The state, he said, had prepared funds to help citizens when necessary.

“The state will decide on reducing all spending by ministries and institutions by 50 per cent if necessary, with the exception the ministries of National Defence; Commerce, and the Council of Ministers which would be reduced by 25 per cent, should finances be needed,” the prime minister said.

He said that spending by sub-national level authorities would need to be reduced more to divert money to the health sector in the future.

“Please do not raise your spending. We should try to reduce spending on everything except salaries. We had to spend more than $400 million on salaries last month. That amount cannot be touched.

“At present, we appeal to citizens to protect themselves through personal hygiene. We are educating citizens not to be afraid, or dispute the measures we are adopting. Our first step is to prevent the disease from spreading.

“Should things escalate to the second possibility where citizens start contracting Covid-19, we will close the entire province and isolate the area, commune or a district which has it,” he said.

Hun Sen stressed that he had thought of these measures far in advance, because of the fear surrounding Covid-19.

He said it is fortunate that Cambodia identified only a single case of Covid-19 in a Chinese man in Preah Sihanouk province, who has since returned to China.

The prime minister also reminded the people that passengers of the MS Westerdam cruise ship that had docked in Preah Sihanouk port were all declared clear of the virus.

Hun Sen advised people not to shake hands and instead use the traditional Khmer greeting of clasping the hands together to minimise skin contact. He said he will also stop shaking hands with foreigners.

As of Monday, Covid-19 has infected more than 90,000 people across 70 countries..