Readiness of the Health System Against COVID-19 and its Impact on Economy and Foreign Trade in MENA

Objectives: This study aims to investigate the readiness and resilience of health system against COVID-19 and the impact of the pandemic on economy and foreign trade in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region with Turkey.Methods: By descriptive analysis, the readiness and resilience of the health system and the impact of the pandemic on economy and foreign trade in the MENA region with Turkey were evaluated. The normality of the indicators by Jarque-Bera (JB), Shapiro-Wilk (SW) and Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) tests were tested. The countries were ranked by min-max standardization method.Results: As of the end of July 2021, the number of COVID-19 related cases was more than 12.4 million in MENA and 5.7 million in Turkey and deaths were more than 212 thousand in MENA and 51 thousand in Turkey. After the analysis in order, it is found that Israel, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Qatar as the most resilient countries and Yemen, Syria, Palestine, Iraq and Libya as the most vulnerable countries against pandemic.Conclusion: The pandemic has affected the life and the economies in the region negatively and the health system for some of them was not sufficient to fight with it.Funding: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.Declaration of Interest: The authors declare that they have no competing interests. Ethical Approval: Since the submitted manuscript do not include any studies involving human participants, human data or human tissue, any individual person’s data in any form (including individual details, images or videos) no ethical approval and consent are needed for the study