The Kurdish-ruled region of northeastern Syria will run out of COVID-19 testing equipment in a week, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) warned on Thursday.
The area has witnessed a surge in cases and deaths in recent weeks and the health crisis it faces will be made worse if testing stops, the aid organisation said in a statement.
“Testing capacity in the northeast has never been sufficient, and now it may be lost altogether,” IRC’s regional policy director Misty Buswell said.
Buswell added that this is putting the “region’s COVID-19 response in serious jeopardy.” The IRC said the semi-autonomous region’s only COVID laboratory, located in the city of Qamishli, “could be forced to stop COVID testing in less than seven days due to a critical shortage” of kits.
“This would have a devastating impact on testing capacity, with health professionals no longer able to identify new cases, track trends, or gain an understanding of the true spread of the disease - just as cases are surging,” it said.
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