Syria braces for lockdown after first virus case

Syria reported the first coronavirus infection on Monday. The healthcare system in the country has been ravaged after a decade of civil war, and authorities fear the virus will spread in the overcrowded displacement camps in the northwest region.
“Testing will be available in Idlib in two days”, WHO spokesman Hedinn Halldorsson said on Monday, and added: “Some 300 COVID-19 diagnostic kits are to be delivered to a laboratory in Idlib city on Wednesday and testing should start shortly afterwards. An additional 2,000 tests would be delivered as soon as possible”.
Halldorsson said that three suspected cases in northwest Syria have tested negative after hospitals sent samples to Turkey, but warned that the WHO is “extremely concerned about the impact COVID-19 may have in the northwest”.
He explained that displaced people live under conditions that make them vulnerable to respiratory infections. Those conditions include overcrowded living conditions, physical and mental stress, as well as a lack of housing, food and clean water.
Halldorsson announced that three hospitals with intensive care units have been modified as isolation units equipped with ventilators and up to 1,000 healthcare workers have been mobilized. He added that a new delivery of protective gear, including 10,000 surgical masks and 500 respirator masks, should arrive within the week.