Last week, a doctor in his 30s working at a hospital in Syria near the Turkish border tested positive for Covid-19. Three more confirmed cases came after: two doctors and a nurse. The coronavirus had officially arrived in Idlib, the last rebel-held territory in Syria.
The outbreak threatens to exacerbate the ever-present humanitarian disaster in northwest Syria. The United Nations estimates about 4 million people now live in the region, almost half of whom have fled from other parts of the country, displaced, sometimes more than once, during the nine-year civil war.