Corona in the Middle East: Yemen has 1st confirmed virus case

Yemen's internationally recognised government announced on Friday the first confirmed case of the new coronavirus in the war-torn country, stoking fears that an outbreak could devastate its already crippled health care system.

The case is a 73-year-old Yemeni national who works at the port of al-Shahr in Hadramawt province, said Yemen's Minister of Health Nasser Baoum. The man is in stable condition, the minister added, without providing further details.

Yemen is a uniquely dangerous place for the coronavirus to spread. Repeated bombings and ground fighting over five years of war have destroyed or closed more than half its health facilities. Deep poverty, dire water shortages and a lack of adequate sanitation have made the country a breeding ground for disease. Health officials have dreaded the virus' eventual appearance in the country.

"We have been saying since the declaration of the pandemic that the introduction of such a case in Yemen would be catastrophic,'' said Altaf Musani, representative of the World Health Organization in Yemen.

The Saudi-led coalition fighting the Iran-backed Houthi rebels declared a cease-fire on Thursday on humanitarian grounds, to prevent the spread of the pandemic. However, fighting continued unabated on Friday, diminishing hopes of a truce that could open doors for peace talks.

Yemen's war erupted in 2014, when the rebels seized the capital, Sanaa, and much of the country's north. The US-backed, Saudi-led coalition intervened to oust the rebels and restore the internationally recognised government. The conflict has killed over 100,000 people and largely settled into a bloody stalemate. The UN has described Yemen as the world's worst humanitarian disaster. Over 24 million people in the country require humanitarian assistance, many of them on the brink of starvation.

Elsewhere in the Middle East, the number of coronavirus infections rose in Israel, with the Health Ministry on Friday reporting more than 10,000 cases, including 92 deaths. The government imposed strict measures to contain the pandemic early on, closing borders, grounding flights and shuttering all non-essential businesses. But the virus tore through its insular ultra-Orthodox religious community, as many ignored guidelines on social distancing.

The tightened lockdown left many alone in their homes for the Passover holiday this week, with no visitors allowed, not even immediate family. When it emerged that Israel's figurehead president, Reuven Rivlin, had nonetheless hosted his daughter for the traditional Seder dinner, outrage spread on social media. Rivlin acknowledged the criticism and apologised on Friday.

The Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the occupied West Bank and also imposed a widespread lockdown early on, reported its second virus death, out of 253 confirmed cases. It says 45 people have recovered.

Also on Friday, authorities in Oman ordered those living in the capital, Muscat, to remain there while banning people from travelling into the city over the virus. The country has more than 450 confirmed cases with two confirmed deaths.

There are more than 134,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the Middle East, including over 5,300 fatalities. Some 4,200 of those deaths are in Iran, which has the largest outbreak in the region. Authorities there had recorded over 68,000 total cases as of Friday. (AP)