Yemen’s Taiz province records first COVID-19 case
Yemen reported the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) to a third province late on Friday, raising the number of diagnosed infections to seven with two deaths in one of the world’s most vulnerable countries.
The UN says it fears the virus could be spreading undetected in the country where a five-year war has shattered health systems and left millions acutely malnourished. The emergency coronavirus committee said in a Twitter post that a 40-year-old man was diagnosed with the infection in the southwestern governorate of Taiz, the region’s first case.
“The patient is receiving care at a quarantine center and measures have been taken by the monitoring teams and the health department for those who interacted with him,” it added.
The governor of Taiz on Saturday announced that he was closing the province’s borders for two weeks, with the exception of supplies of food and other essential goods, in order to prevent the virus from spreading.
He also ordered mosques and markets to close and banned “large gatherings.”
Yemen recorded its first case of COVID-19 in southern Hadhramout province on April 10. On Wednesday, it announced five infections in Aden, with two deaths.
The country is already grappling with the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis due to a war between Yemen’s internally recognized government and the Iranianbacked Houthi militia.
The World Health Organization has said it fears that COVID-19 will impact Yemen severely as the population has some of the lowest levels of immunity to disease compared with other countries. Around 80 percent of the population, or 24 million people, rely on humanitarian aid and 10 million are at risk of starvation.
HIGHLIGHT Around 80 percent of the population in Yemen relies on humanitarian aid.