Refugee camp in Lebanon reports its first coronavirus case

A Palestinian woman from Syria has become the first refugee living in a camp in Lebanon to test positive for the coronavirus.  Lebanon is home to more than 1 million Syrian refugees. The country also hosts tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees and their descendants, most of them living in squalid camps with no access to public services. The refugee camp has been put under lockdown. 

The patient zero has been taken to the state-run Rafic Hariri hospital in Beirut. Currently testing process is on to test the other refugees the testing will focus on the woman''s relatives and people she has interacted with, as well as 50 others chosen arbitrarily inside the camp and its surroundings", said Lebanon''s official National News Agency. 

"The main concern remains the spread of coronavirus in the overcrowded Palestine refugee camps where there are very limited possibilities for home isolation," an UNRWA spokeswoman said earlier this month.  Meanwhile, just one Palestinian, who lives outside a camp, and three Syrians have tested positive in Lebanon for COVID-19 compared to 677 infections and 21 deaths across the country, according to officials.