Understaffed Tunisian hospital battles coronavirus spike

The situation is dire in the Tunisian town of Kairouan

KAIROUAN, Tunisia -- A man wearing a protective suit quickly yet carefully places a black sheet over a COVID-19 victim laid out in a coffin in a courtyard at Ibn Jazzar Hospital in the Tunisian town of Kairouan. He then folds a white sheet on top and sprinkles the body with disinfectant from a small bottle, while loved ones and other hospital visitors cry out “Allahu Akbar,” or “God is great,” in Arabic. Patients in the hospital’s overfilled COVID-19 ward are dying daily amid a spike in coronavirus infections in the North African country, with Kairouan and three other regions especially hard hit. At the regional hospital, tensions mount as personnel try to cope with scarce means. “I’m shocked,” said Sana Kraiem, whose mother was put in a wheelchair in a roomful of COVID-19 patients, “like a dog", she described. “They told me they can’t free up a bed occupied by a dead person,” a distressed Kraiem said in an interview with The Associated Press during a visit this week to the hospital.