In recent days, Turkey has overtaken its Iranian neighbor in the number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 infections, the Turkish Minister of Health announced on Saturday April 18, 2020. The country now has 2,140 deaths and nearly 91,000 people are infected with the coronavirus.

Although many doubt the reliability of the official figures, the Ankara authorities remain confident. Our correspondents in Istanbul, Shona Bhattacharyya and Ludovic De Foucaud, met the president of the Istanbul medical chamber who explains to them why.

In Israel, religion and the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic do not always mix well ... Our correspondents in the Middle East, Cécile Galluccio and Antoine Mariotti, went to the ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem, where lives a community that is both the most affected by coronavirus and the one that rejects most health directives. 

Finally, in Syria, the spread of the virus is causing concern. We gave the floor to the Rojava Information Center located in the Kurdish territory of the northeast of the country. The region, targeted by a military operation presented as anti-terrorist by Ankara last fall, announced the death of a first victim of the coronavirus in early April. 

>> See also our special program: "Palestinian Territories, Iran, Syria ... Confinement in isolation"

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