TUNIS: Several thousand Tunisian healthcare workers launched a general strike Thursday and protested in the capital to demand better public hospital management and a law regulating their status after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nurses and technicians working in public hospitals gathered in front of the health ministry in Tunis, carrying placards reading "public health is a national asset", among other slogans, an AFP journalist said. The protesters demanded a specific law to regulate their status, highlighting that they had been on the front lines of the fight against the novel coronavirus outbreak and continued to work through the crisis, unlike other civil servants.-AFP