COVID-19 Pandemic in the Arab World: A Mini-Review Article

Ahmad Jebur¹, Tammam Harfouch² & Rim Harfouch^1*

¹Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Al Andalus University for Medical Sciences, Tartous, Syria
²Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Cardiovascular Diseases Institute, Iasi, Romania

Dr. Rim Harfouch, Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Al Andalus University for Medical Sciences, Tartous, Syria.

Keywords: COVID-19; Epidemiology; Arab Countries

Abstract

The whole world is facing the COVID-19 pandemic caused by (SARS-CoV-2) virus, which was first reported in December 2019 in Wuhan, China, which was classified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a public health emergency of international concern On January 30, 2020. Because of the exponential increase in the number of cases and deaths, many countries have adopted pandemic preparedness measures and proactive approaches, such as entry restrictions from affected countries; temperature screening; quarantine of those who have contacted with infected people, or those deemed to be in the incubation period; and public education.
Lack of resources is a problem in reporting COVID-19 cases in the majority of Arab countries, especially in Yemen, Libya, Sudan, and Syria. Civil wars have weakened infrastructure and divided governments, making it difficult to detect the virus and care for those infected. In this review, we summarize the status of COVID-19 disease in all Arab countries and the estimated number of cases and deaths by their governments.

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. (CC BY 4.0).