(Zaman Al Wasl)- As the COVID-19 pandemic spread around the world, the Idlib Educational Complex has been closed and classes suspended in fearing that the virus would reach the liberated areas in northern Syrian.
Despite the difficulties of the distance learning, teachers in Al-Zaitoun camp in the western countryside of Idlib have started giving lessons online.
Teacher Muhammad Al-Ahmad said that due to coronavirus, Abjad Initiative for Education has taken preventive measures within the camps in which they work, creating educational groups for children on social media forums.
“Our mission as the teaching staff is to give lessons that are recorded and checked for mistakes, and then they are broadcasted in the spaces that can be accessed by the parents.
This method, however, faces a number of difficulties in the camps in which they operate, including the weak internet signal and the lack of smart phones for some families.
“We have distributed pamphlets to families in the camps as precautionary and preventive measures. We are trying to continue providing children with the required development and education, to the best of our abilities," Al-Ahmad concluded.
The war-torn country has for now confirmed 19 cases of the novel coronavirus but experts have cast doubts upon that figure with a policy memo released two weeks ago by the London School of Economics flagging "significant indications that a wider outbreak has already begun," according to euronews.
The paper estimates that the maximum number of COVID-19 cases the country can "adequately" treat is 6,500 and that just half of the 650 intensive care (ICU) beds in public and private hospitals nationwide — excluding Idlib province — have ventilators.
Idlib province is home to 3.5 million people, one million of them are displaced, according to the United Nations.
Meanwhile, Health Minister in the opposition's Interim Government said 14 suspected Coronavirus cases in Idlib province were tested negative on Wednesday, such good news as the World Health organization warns of the limited capacity to deal with a rapid spread of the virus in northern Syria.
Dr. Maram Sheikh told Zaman al-Wasl that no Coronavirus cases have been confirmed in the opposition areas until now.
"All 81 suspected cases were tested negative since the kits arrived at the ministry laboratory in the liberated northern Syrian,'' he added.
The World Health organization (WHO) has so far shipped 900 tests to Idlib and another 5,000 are expected to arrive next week. Personal protective equipment has also been distributed to 21 health care facilities but the Idlib Health Directorate is urging the UN agency to ramp up aid and provide "urgently-needed ventilators, protective gear for medical staff and hand sanitizer to overcrowded camps."
According to the WHO, only 50% of public hospitals and 47% of public primary health care centers were fully functional in Syria at the end of 2019.
The conflict in Syria has killed more than 390,000 people and displaced 6.5 millions, leaving most of the Syrian people under the poverty line, according to the United Nations.
Zaman Al Wasl
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