Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

COVID-19: Tunisia Records Highest Death Rate in Eastern Mediterranean and Africa


Thu 15 Jul 2021 | 05:57 PM
H-Tayea

On Thursday, Tunisia's Ministry of Health announced that it had recorded 194 new deaths caused by the coronavirus, a figure that represented another sad record, bringing the country's toll to 16,845 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic.

According to Dr. Yves Souteyrand, the representative for Tunisia at the World Health Organization (WHO), Covid-19 has been devastating for the country.

"Tunisia has the highest death rate on the entire African continent and the whole Arab world," he added.

With "more than 100 deaths a day" in a country of 12 million people, "that's really a lot".

Arab countries promised help earlier this month. A Qatari field hospital has already arrived, and this week planes from Egypt, Algeria, the UAE, and Turkey have landed in Tunisia loaded with urgent medical aid and vaccines.

On Wednesday, three Egyptian cargo military planes, loaded with medical supplies, took from East Air Base to Tunisia to support its health sector’s efforts to face the coronavirus pandemic.

The medical aid comes in accordance with President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi’s directives highlighting the depth and interdependence of relations between the two countries.

After its successful campaign against the pandemic last year, Tunisia’s health system is currently collapsing due to a hike in the number of daily coronavirus infections and deaths, as well as the severe shortage of oxygen supplies.