Iran Press/Middle East: Yemen has reported its first coronavirus case in a southern province, raising fears of catastrophic consequences in a healthcare system affected negatively by five years of Saudi-led coalition war.
UN humanitarian coordinator Lise Grande said the effect of the virus in Yemen would be "catastrophic" if it spread.
“For weeks we have feared this, and now it’s happened. After five years of war, people across the country have some of the lowest levels of immunity and highest levels of acute vulnerability in the world," she said.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said it was providing medical supplies, testing kits, ventilators and training to Yemen's health services.
"The first confirmed case of coronavirus has been reported in Hadhramaut province," Yemen's supreme national emergency committee for COVID-19 said on Twitter on Friday.
Yemen's national emergency committee said on Friday that the patient was a 60-year-old man in the southern oil-producing region of Hadhramaut.
Spokesman Ali al-Walidi said the man was in a stable condition at a quarantine center.
Authorities quickly sealed off the port where the man works and told other employees to self-isolate for two weeks, Reuters reported.
The neighboring regions of Shabwa and Al Mahra sealed their borders with Hadhramout, where a 12-hour nightly curfew has been imposed.
Yemen is suffering the world's worst humanitarian crisis and millions are reliant on food aid. While diseases including cholera, dengue and malaria are rife and only half of the hospitals are fully functional, the coronavirus is another kind of challenge.
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