Outbreak in Lebanese town is ‘out of control’

A coronavirus committee in the town of Hasbaya in southern Lebanon is saying the spread of the disease is out of control.

Covid- 19 has killed at least 433 and infected 48,377 people in the country.

Nine died in the past 24 hours, the Health Ministry said in its latest statement, released on Wednesday.

In most cases, the source of infection is unknown, said a committee in Hasbaya that is tracking the outbreak in the town.

“Hospitals equipped to deal with cases of coronavirus are overcrowded and working at maximum capacity,” it said.

“Laboratories are working with great difficulty to respond to PCR test requests. Contaminations among medical staff have reached 100 cases. This signals that the situation is slipping out of control.”

The committee appealed to the Lebanese Health Ministry and the World Health Organisation to equip Hasbaya’s public hospital to deal with the outbreak, saying the pandemic poses a “great and existential threat to our society”.

It accused some local people in the town of not respecting social distancing rules and of failing to wear masks.

Coronavirus cases in Lebanon are low by international standards, but intensive care units have reached a critical 82 per cent capacity, the World Health Organisation said.

Meanwhile, the virus continues to spread in Lebanon’s overcrowded prisons, public hospitals and densely packed cities, where mask-wearing remains lax.

“If we continue with this exponential growth, I don’t think we’ll last more than a couple of weeks,” said Dr Eveline Hitti, chair of the emergency department at the American University of Beirut Medical Centre.

Lebanon was praised for containing the spread of infection early in the pandemic, when the average number of cases detected was fewer than 100 per day.

But in August, as the country’s woes began to multiply, concern about the coronavirus took a back seat.