International Rescue: Corona testing equipment to run out in north, east Syria, things will get worse

Metsy Basswell, the International Rescue Committee said in a statement, "The ability to conduct tests in north and east Syria has never been sufficient, and may now be completely absent."

The organization stated that the only laboratory in which tests are conducted, located in Qamishlo, "may be forced to stop the tests for Covid-19 within less than a week due to the serious shortage" of the testing equipment.

It considered that this would have "serious repercussions ... with the inability of medical personnel to identify any new infections, trace the course of (the disease), or even realize the reality of the spread of the disease."

She said, "We fear that things will get worse"

Last week, the Damascus government received the first batch of anti-corona virus vaccines, consisting of 203,000 doses, part of which will be allocated to the areas of north and east Syria, which have not yet received anything in the absence of a specific program to deliver them.

At the beginning of last year, the UN Security Council reduced the crossing points for humanitarian aid to Syria and reduced it to one border crossing with Turkey in the northwest of the country. Under pressure from Russia, it ruled out the Tel Koçer border crossing, which prevented the delivery of essential health supplies to north and east Syria, and exacerbated the humanitarian and health situation.

D.H