The Ministry of Health and Sports received an unexpected donation from the Ministry of Transport and Communications to help fight COVID-19 this week.

Indeed, the Ministry donated more than MMK 1.7 billion (over USD 1.2 million) to the National Central Committee on Prevention, Control and Treatment of COVID-19 collected since February 22nd from the 34 million blocked SIM cards that were not re-registered as per government regulations.

Earlier this year the government required every single SIM card owner to register their ID or face the cancellation of the card. Before the registration campaigns, Myanmar had a sim-card penetration well over 100%, many users having multiple SIM cards, many of them un-registered, to benefit from the seasonal promotions offered by the 4 main operators.