Syria's President Bashar Assad and wife test positive for Covid-19

Syrian President Bashar Assad and his wife Asma went into self-isolation on Monday, after their coronavirus tests returned positive, the president’s office said.

The pair remains in “good health and stable condition” after showing only mild symptoms of the disease.

They will keep working from home and are expected to remain in isolation for two or three weeks.

In a message on Twitter, the president and his wife have praised the country’s medics at the forefront of the battle with Covid-19, while also calling on the public to strictly follow the precautions aimed at slowing the spread of the disease.

Syria has so far officially registered around 16,000 coronavirus cases and more than 1,000 deaths. But the actual numbers are believed to be higher, due to insufficient testing in the country, which has been fighting international terrorism for the past decade. Assad’s government now controls most of the Syrian territory once again, with the turnaround in the conflict occurring after Damascus received backing from Russia in 2015.

In late February, Syria joined the dozens of nations that have already registered the Russian Sputnik V vaccine, which has an efficacy of 91 percent. Moscow said it would be ready to organize direct supplies of the jab to Damascus after it is greenlighted by the country’s medical regulator.

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