In Tajikistan, the number of cases of coronavirus by the evening of May 17 reached 1524. It is reported by the Unified National Portal on the coronavirus covid.tj.  It also reports that the number of deaths from COVID-19 was 39.

This is the largest number of victims in Central Asia. Prior to this, Kazakhstan was the first in the number of deaths in the region - 34 people. Then Kyrgyzstan - 14 dead and Uzbekistan - 12 dead. According to official data, there are no confirmed cases of coronavirus infection in Turkmenistan.

An alternative death count is underway in Tajikistan at kvtj.info. On the evening of May 17, there were more than 240 dead on this list.

At the same time, the Ministry of Health of Tajikistan claims that the information on this site is not reliable and only its statistics are correct and only it needs to be trusted.

Meanwhile, despite the daily increase in the number of sick and dead, Tajikistan continues to refrain from taking the preventive measures observed in neighboring countries. Public transport is crowded, people still leave their homes at any time.

According to the Ministry of Health, in the country there is only one laboratory capable of testing for coronavirus. This lab can run up to 250 tests per day. At such a pace, it will take about 400 days to test for at least 1% of the population.