Displaced Syrian women in a camp in Idlib Province, March 2020 (Aaref Watad/AFP)


UPDATE, 1545 GMT:

Syrians in the opposition-held northwest chant, “Corona, corona, don’t come visit us. We don’t have medical services. And our death is enough.”


Changing its position, the World Health Organization will start testing for coronavirus in opposition-held northwest Syria later this week.

The WHO emergency director for the Middle East, Rick Brennan, told Reuters on Monday, “We are hoping…to have the machinery and the tests sometime this week so we can start testing.”

Last week the WHO representative in Syria, Ni’ma Saeed Abid, e-mailed an EA correspondent, that testing could not be done in the northwest. An estimated 3 million people live in the area, more than 1 million of them displaced since last April by a Russian-regime offensive seizing part of Idlib Province and almost all of northern Hama.

Saeed Abid said 1,200 tests have been given to the central public health lab in Damascus and that technicians have been trained on detection of the virus. He insisted 1,200 tests were sufficient for the country, considering “regular replenishment” by the WHO.

But the WHO’s worries have risen even as the Assad regime proclaims that there are no Coronavirus cases in the country.

Brennan said, “We are very concerned. All of the surrounding countries have documented cases.”

See also Syria Daily, March 14: Health Minister Compares Coronavirus with Regime’s Mass Killings

Syria Daily, March 12: Syrians Brace Themselves for Coronavirus

Medical facilities have been devastated in the northwest by Russian and Assad regime ground and air attacks before a ceasefire on March 5. About 70 have been bombed, leaving only of facilities operational.

Omar Hammoud, a children’s doctor in Azaz in the northwest, said there is no plan for the region. He told Reuters, “I’ve taken my precautions in dealing with patients and I’m trying to calm their panic, because there is so much talk about the virus.”

Residents Doubt Regime Claims

The Assad regime closed schools, universities, and institutes last week. All cultural, sporting, and scientific events with crowds are suspended. Work hours in the public sector are being reduced 40%, and businesses ordered to operate with the minimum of staff for 15 days.

But residents doubt the regime’s insistence that Coronavirus has not entered the country.

An aid worker, briefed by medical staff in hospitals in Latakia Province in western Syria, summarized to Al Jazeera:

There are cases and deaths in Latakia but the state would not acknowledge. [The doctors] may see this, people may die from it in their hands, but they would not dare say “corona” publicly.

A doctor in the province reinforced the account, “[The virus] is there, but the capacity to determine it is limited.”

He said medical staff have taken no preventative measures.

The regime’s Health Ministry has not said how many tests have been carried out. Health Minister Nizar Yazigi maintained that masks and special protective outfits are being distributed to medical staff.

A pharmacist in Latakia said:

There is great fear among citizens about this epidemic and everyone knows that the government will not acknowledge any infections, so they [have no information] on how to protect themselves except from social media….The government does not have the capacity to cope with this epidemic. It has neither the cadre nor the infrastructure to do so.