Volunteers came to the rescue as virus raged in Kyrgyzstan

MOSCOW (AP) — When his mother began deteriorating from the coronavirus two weeks ago, Bektrour Iskender knew that hospitals in Kyrgyzstan's capital, Bishkek, were full. So he turned to Twitter for advice.

He was directed to a volunteer group that made house calls with oxygen concentrators for patients with trouble breathing. Two hours later, volunteers in full protective gear arrived and showed Iskender how to use one of the machines he had borrowed from friends of his relatives. His mother started improving soon after using it.

“I later spoke to my friend, a doctor, and he said that it was probably a breakthrough moment,” said the 35-year-old Iskender, co-founder of the Kloop online news site.

One of the poorest countries to emerge from the former Soviet Union, Kyrgyzstan has been hit hard by the coronavirus, with the outbreak pushing the Central Asian nation's outdated and poorly funded health care system to near collapse.

Armies of volunteers, however, have played a major role in filling the gaps in dealing with the crisis in the country of 6.5 million people.

“For such a small country with limited resources, volunteers did a colossal amount of work,” said Bermet Baryktabasova, a medical expert in Bishkek. “They saved thousands of lives.”

When the virus broke out in Kyrgyzstan in March, authorities imposed a tight lockdown with curfews and a heavy police presence.

With few resources to protect those who lost income while businesses were closed, officials started to ease lockdown restrictions in early May, when the country reported a little over 1,000 coronavirus cases and 12 deaths, citing economic fallout and public frustration over the lockdown. Some said the government feared unrest in the country, which has a history of political uprisings and...