Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his wife 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 coronavirus after experiencing “mild symptoms”, according to the statement, which confirmed the test was positive.
“Both are in good health and in stable condition and will continue to work during the quarantine period at home, which will last two or three weeks,” added the statement published on social media.
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Assad joins a growing list of world leaders who have tested positive for coronavirus, including French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and former President Donald Trump.
The news comes in the same month that the country celebrates 10 years of war that killed hundreds of thousands of people, displaced half the population and decimated its economy.
Well over half of the Syrian population cannot afford a staple meal, with staple food prices 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 is due to hold presidential elections in May and Assad is widely expected to win his fourth consecutive term.
In 2014, he won 88.7 percent of the vote, with the opposition and its Western allies declaring this a scam, according to The Associated Press.
Syria recorded nearly 16,000 cases of the virus, as well as 1,063 deaths, according to a Johns Hopkins University count.
These cases are, however, only those registered in areas controlled by the government and it is believed that the number of cases is much higher, as there is a limited number of tests being performed, according to the AP.
Syria’s state news agency, SANA, said last month that the country would launch its vaccination campaign in the first week of March, starting with frontline health workers.
Health Minister Hassan Al-Ghobash said that Syria received a quantity of the vaccine “from a friendly country” without giving further details, according to SANA.
The official statement released on Monday did not say whether Assad and his wife were vaccinated.
