Pakistan blames Syria for Coronavirus outbreak.

KARACHI: Officials in Pakistan have blamed coronavirus cases on returnees from Syria, despite Damascus not reporting a single infection.

Pakistani rescue personnels check the body temperature of a man during a drill as a precaution against coronavirus in Peshawar, Pakistan on 2 March 2020 [H Ali/Anadolu Agency]

Chief Minister of Pakistan's Sindh province, Syed Murad Ali Shah, alleged that nationals returning from the Middle East had imported the disease.

A World Health Organisation (WHO) report on the COVID-19 virus published yesterday also stated that all of Pakistan's cases were "imported cases only".

According to Shah, of 14 confirmed cases in Sindh province, eight had a travel history that included Syria.

In an interview, Shah said that "the eight cases were those that came from Doha. Before Doha, they were either coming from Iraq or Syria".

Adding that "as soon as we found out about one of the cases, we tested all the people from the group, even those that didn't have any symptoms. Some did not show any symptoms, but we still tested them, and they tested...