Why there were few cases of coronavirus disease 2019 in Libya during the first two months of the pandemic?

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a pandemic that affected almost all countries worldwide with more than 29,439,120 confirmed cases and 932,486 deaths recorded till on September 14, 2020. However, on May 25, 2020, after 2 months from the first reported case of COVID-19 in Libya, the country was among very few countries in the world that had very few cases of COVID-19 with a total of 75 confirmed cases and three deaths during the first 2 months since the detection of the first case on March 24, 2020. Based on the global epidemiological pattern of the disease, the magnitude of COVID-19 in Libya could have been much worse. However, the reality is eccentrically different and the epidemiology exhibited different scenario with very few cases being recorded during the first 2 months of pandemic in Libya. In this article, a review of COVID-19 situation in Libya is presented with thoughts about the potential reasons that could explain the very few cases of COVID-19 in the country in context with the global figures of the pandemic.