New infections have slowed since a high of over 9,000 daily new cases in the middle of the month, but the crisis has placed Tunisia’s healthcare system under immense pressure and forced Saied to request critical medical aid from neighboring nations including the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Libya earlier this month.

The UAE sent 500,000 vaccines to the country and Syria sent doses, ventilators, oxygen concentrators, medical beds, and PPE, its state-run SPA agency said at the time.

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Qatar sent a field hospital, while Libya shut its borders with Tunisia over concerns about the spread of the Delta variant.

Under the constitution, the president has direct responsibility only for foreign affairs and the military, but after a government debacle with walk-in vaccination centers last week, he told the army to take charge of the pandemic response.