Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his wife have tested positive for Covid-19, the Syrian presidency said in a statement on Monday.
The president and his wife, Asma al-Assad, were tested for the coronavirus after they had ‘mild symptoms’, according to the statement, which confirmed that the test had returned positive.
“Both are in good health and in stable condition, and they will continue to work during their home quarantine period which will last two or three weeks,” the statement published on social media added.
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Assad joins a growing list of world leaders who have tested positive for the coronavirus, including French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and former President Donald Trump.
The news comes the same month that the country declared ten years of war that killed hundreds of thousands of people, displaced half the population and caused its economy to decline.
More than half of the Syrian population can not afford a basic meal with the price of basic food being more than 200 percent higher than last year, according to the United Nations.
Assad has been in power since 2000 and his family has ruled Syria for half a century. Syria will hold presidential elections in May, and Assad is widely expected to win a fourth consecutive term.
In 2014, he garnered 88.7 percent of the vote, while the opposition and their Western allies declared it a hoax, according to The Associated Press.
According to a version from Johns Hopkins University, Syria recorded nearly 16,000 virus cases, as well as 1,063 deaths.
However, these cases are only those recorded in the government areas, and the number of cases is apparently much higher because, according to the AP, limited amounts of tests are being done.
Syria’s state news agency, SANA, reported last month that the country would launch its vaccination campaign in the first week of March, starting with health workers at the forefront.
Health Minister Hassan Al-Ghobash said that according to SANA, Syria had received a quantity of the vaccine “from a friendly country” without giving further details.
The official statement released Monday did not say whether Assad and his wife had been vaccinated.
