COVID-19 Pandemic: Syria’s Response and Healthcare Capacity

The current COVID-19 outbreak has pushed even the most advanced healthcare systems beyond their capacity. It has overwhelmed the heathiest economies and seen democratic states struggling to secure the compliance of its population over their increasingly strict prevention measures. Syria, whose healthcare system has been devastated by nine years of war, is at particularly acute risk of a severe COVID-19 outbreak, and the economic and social collapse that this would engender.

The grim predictions of the likely impact of a COVID-19 outbreak on Syria worsen still further for areas outside Syrian government control. Not only is governance highly fragile and uncoordinated in these areas, but they also seem to be outside the radar of the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) response. Underfunded and understaffed local health governance actors and medical NGOs are currently racing against time in their attempts to respond to the situation.

On March 22, Damascus announced the country’s first confirmed case of COVID-19, reportedly coming from abroad,2 and to date, only five have been confirmed across the country3. However, up until March 16, only 103 tests had been conducted in the country,4 and there are many indicators to suggest that Syria already had a considerable number of COVID-19 cases prior to this announcement. Alongside a lack of transparency over the number of cases, very little is publicly known about the healthcare system’s capacity to handle the inevitable outbreak.

This memo presents a rapid assessment of the capacity of healthcare system in all parts of Syria to respond to and contain a COVID-19 outbreak. This assessment was carried out using primary and secondary data; this includes available data from UN agencies, international organisations, and the governmental Central Bureau of Statistics in Syria, Syrian medical organisations and local health directorates. We have also drawn on interviews carried out with local activists, medical professionals and NGOs in different areas across the country. Finally, this memo presents summaries of the recent developments and response plans to contain an COVID-19 outbreak in all areas of Syria.