Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon on lockdown after 1st virus case found

A Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon has been put on lockdown after the UN announced the first confirmed case of coronavirus in one of the country’s numerous and crowded camps.

The patient, a Palestinian refugee from Syria, has been taken to the state-run Rafic Hariri hospital in Beirut, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, says.

Medical experts are due to visit the Wavel camp in the eastern Bekaa Valley later on Wednesday to carry out tests, the agency adds.

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,” says Lebanon’s official National News Agency.

— AFP