Beirut (AFP)

Hospitals in Beirut are almost saturated in the face of the influx of patients with the new coronavirus and Lebanon is "on the brink" after the devastating explosion in the Lebanese capital, resigned Minister of Health Hamad Hassan assured Monday.

In recent weeks, Lebanon has seen an increase in infections with the new coronavirus. The country recorded a record of contamination with 439 new patients on Sunday, bringing the total number of Covid-19 cases to 8,881 since the start of the epidemic in Lebanon at the end of February, including 103 deaths.

"The public and private hospitals of the capital find themselves with a very limited reception capacity, whether in terms of beds in intensive care units or ventilators," Minister Hamad Hassan warned at a press conference.

"We are on the brink, we do not have the luxury to take our time," he warned, pleading for a new two-week lockdown to curb the spread of the epidemic.

"In the capital, the intensive care units and hospital departments set up to fight the epidemic in public hospitals are full," Mr. Hassan said earlier at the microphone of the radio station La Voix du Liban.

"In most private hospitals that receive patients with the coronavirus, intensive care beds are full," he also said.

He explained that four hospitals in the capital that were hosting Covid-19 cases are "out of order" after the deadly explosion in the port of Beirut on August 4 that devastated entire neighborhoods of the capital.

The chaotic situation after the explosion makes it difficult to establish containment or comply with precautionary measures, warned Mr. Hassan.

"Our ability to control behavior in the face of the virus is more limited," he said, citing in particular "the movement of families to hospitals to look for the wounded or missing" and the mobilization in the street, where dozens volunteers cleared the rubble daily.

The government had decreed a provisional containment, canceled after the devastating explosion that left more than 177 dead and 6,500 injured.

The explosion was caused by a fire in a warehouse where, according to the authorities, 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate had been stored for years.

The pandemic was first brought under control by the Lebanese authorities, who imposed a widely followed containment in mid-March. But the cases started to rise again at the beginning of the summer with the gradual lifting of the measures.

© 2020 AFP