The World Health Organization-declared global pandemic has hit countries such as China, Italy, and the United States hard, but how will nations such as Syria fare?
Many Syrians, including medical professionals, have fled the country. Constant and deliberate aerial bombardments by Russia and the Assad regime have destroyed hospitals, schools, and the logical sites to shelter in place — homes. The medical infrastructure in the northwest is decimated. In the past three years, more than 500 medical sites have been stuck as fighting has intensified around Idlib, the last rebel stronghold. Currently, only half of the medical facilities in the northwest are still operational in an area whose population has swelled by one million internally displaced Syrians seeking refuge from the chaos of war. Hundreds of medical staff are dead at the hands of the regime and Russian assaults.
In short, if it does nothing, the world is facing a catastrophe on an unprecedented scale.
Thus far, Syria has only counted one death from coronavirus after months of denying the local community spread altogether. It’s likely the health system is too fragile to conduct the necessary tests to provide an accurate case count. Considering the high likelihood of traffic with the infected among foreign forces from Iraq and Iran, the virus’s spread to the rest of the region is all but guaranteed. Cases have also already been reported in neighboring Lebanon and Turkey, which see a lot of cross-border traffic with Syria.
“There is no way on Earth Syria is immune from a globally spread virus,” a resident of Damascus told Syria Direct when asked if they believed that there were no cases of coronavirus in the country. “The government lives in denial; it’s bullshit.” Some residents cope by making memes mocking the government’s response, or lack thereof.
The overall health of the populace has severely declined thanks to years of stress and malnourishment. Omar Hammoud, a children’s doctor in Azaz town, told Reuters that a clear plan has yet to be drawn up for Syria’s northwest. “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,” he said while at a clinic that belongs to IDA, a Turkey-based aid agency that runs healthcare facilities on the Syrian side of the border. “If the virus spreads in the camps, controlling it would be very difficult, with the tents so close to each other. There is no safe distance between people here; there is overpopulation.”
The government has finally enforced a national curfew and domestic travel ban, with Syrians rushing stores in the wake of soaring prices. While a lockdown now is certainly better than nothing, it is far too little, too late to prevent many from catching the disease and dying in already stressful physical and mental conditions. Prisoners in detention, as well as people in refugee camps, are at particular risk. Human rights groups have called for their immediate release to reduce the virulence of the disease, but Assad’s government is unlikely to comply.
Refugee camps in Turkey and Greece are also likely to be petri dishes to spread the disease rapidly among already ill people. The Turkish ambassador to the United States has told reporters that trying to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus would be a “mission impossible.” There is every reason to think such a dim prognosis is applicable to camps inside Syria, too. In Jordan, authorities have taken strict monitoring measures to ensure that displaced persons camps are not at higher risk of exposure, but this level of prevention is unlikely to be replicated elsewhere. Displaced Syrians in Lebanon are unlikely to be so lucky.
“The hundreds of thousands of refugees who live in the big cities under the most pathetic conditions in Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley are often not registered. They don’t have any access to any health services, so probably there the risk is even greater,” said Rene Wildangel, a policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. Lisa Abu Khaled, the UNHCR spokeswoman for Lebanon, said that they were working with the Lebanese government and other United Nations agencies to develop contingency plans in the event of a further spread and were raising awareness among refugees about hygiene and preventative precautions.
Health recommendations there are, of course, the same as health recommendations everywhere: shut down nonessential businesses, isolate yourself as much as possible, wash your hands, avoid touching your face, and increase testing. But, in conditions across Syria and refugee camps, these basic health precautions are impossible to meet. And without honest reporting from the government as to the scale of the outbreak or sufficient measures to contain it, Syria will replace China, Italy, and the United States to become the world’s next coronavirus hot spot. From there, the pandemic is poised to reinfect both Europe and the rest of the Middle East. What is now a few months of agony, economic distress, and rising death rates could drag on for years unless something is done to manage the crisis.
The international community must wake up — again — to what’s happening in Syria.
B. Lana Guggenheim (@BLanaGuggenheim) is a freelance journalist based in New York City. She has an M.S. in International Conflict from the London School of Economics and Political Science and works as a reporter and editor covering extremism, culture, economics, and democracy.
