Yemen Reports First Two Coronavirus Deaths

The Yemeni health minister told Yemen TV channel that the authorities had registered the first two deaths due to the novel coronavirus, COVID-19.

On Wednesday, the Yemeni authorities announced the detection of five cases of COVID-19 infection in Aden, after the United Nations said that it had feared the virus could spread without being detected in a country where millions face the risk of starvation and poor medical care.

Earlier, Yemen has previously recorded only one infection.

“The two deaths recorded, one of which was an African citizen with Somali citizenship in his sixties, and the second is a Yemeni citizen in his forties, from Lahj governorate, south of the country,” according to medical sources to the UAE-based al-Arabiya News Wesbite early Thursday.

On its part, the National Emergency Committee in Yemen announced on Twitter that it recorded five cases of the novel corona virus in the city of Aden.

The international relief agencies in Sanaa confirmed that they are extremely concerned about the existence of the novel corona virus and the possibility of rapid spread of it, as Yemen remained in contradiction to what is happening in the rest of the eastern Mediterranean countries with one confirmed case of corona infection, which was announced in Hadramout on April 10, according to a press release.

In another context, the Governor of Taiz Nabil Shamsan issued, on Wednesday evening, a decision to close all the major exit routes in the Yemeni governorate except for the entry of goods and supplies to complete the health sector's procedures and measures.

The Yemeni News Agency stated that this came after the announcement of the Supreme National Committee to confront the novel corona virus epidemic.

The Yemeni governor also directed the emergency committee in the governorate to quickly take preventive and precautionary measures and prepare for any possible emergency.