The Lebanese Ministry of Health announced the first death in the country of a patient affected by the coronavirus, in the case of a 56-year-old man who allegedly contracted Covid-19 during a trip to Egypt. It had been announced that Lebanon had failed to contain the virus and the country has entered the propagation phase, and since then the cases identified as positive have doubled from 20 to 41, confirming the expansion outside the capital. It has been analyzed what happened. Lebanon is not prepared for an outbreak that may have unexpected and disastrous dimensions given the current situation in the country and its geographical situation. The country enters its fifth month of anti-government protests at the same time that an economic crisis has passed since its founding in 1943. Long before the first confirmed case of coronavirus was detected, the Lebanese hospital group raised the alarm by claiming that both medical equipment and drugs were beginning to be scarce in their rooms as they could not cope with new imports due to a lack of foreign exchange.

It is studied that if the outbreak expands in the country, it needs the help of international organizations to confront it. This is due to a shortage of foreign exchange and medical supplies, coupled with poor public health. 82% of the health sector in Lebanon rests on the private sector. And every day there are many more citizens who cannot afford private health insurance when losing their job or having their salary cut by half due to the current crisis. That is why, for now, private hospitals have admitted coronavirus cases fearing that they affect the flow of patients and therefore their income. As of last Friday, 75% of those affected by Covid-19 in Lebanon arrived on flights from Iran, which is the focus of the virus in the Middle East. The Lebanese public works minister announced last week new restrictive measures on flights from endemic countries such as China, South Korea, Iran and Italy. According to the circular that has been released, only national passengers and residents of Lebanon from those countries will be admitted to the Beirut airport.

It has been considered that if the coronavirus reaches the refugee camps it will be a massacre. The shelters’ immune system is more fragile since they have been receiving an insufficient diet for about eight years. These people live in extreme overcrowding conditions and therefore very conducive to the rapid spread of the virus. Lebanon is the country with the highest density of refugees in the world, hosting some 1.5 million Syrians and nearly 400,000 Palestinians. In the Lebanese town of Arsal, the eastern border with Syria, 65,000 refugees are crowded into overcrowded informal settlements. An action group has been created with local and international NGOs led by the UN, WHO and in coordination with the Lebanese Government, but the reality is that until now, actions have been reduced to awareness and information campaigns on ways to spread of the coronavirus.

Pierre El Sokhn