In rebel-held northwest Syria, where a year of sustained attacks on hospitals has crippled the health care infrastructure, doctors warn that a looming coronavirus outbreak would be devastating to the large numbers of Syrians living in makeshift homes and squalid, overcrowded camps along the Turkish border. 

Although no cases of COVID-19 have been reported in the country, health care workers reached by Al-Monitor on WhatsApp are gearing up for what they say is a likely catastrophe in war-torn Idlib province, the last swath of the country still in the hands of the opposition after nine years of war. 

“I’m scared,” said Dr. Wassim Zakaria, 36, an internal medicine specialist who works in Idlib city. “Our inability to provide is the most difficult type of torture.” 

Zakaria, who has diabetes, worries he and other health care workers could be among the disease’s first victims. Hospitals in Idlib, already overwhelmed and under-resourced, face a critical shortage of personal protective equipment — including masks, gowns and gloves — that could leave doctors like himself exposed to the virus.