Syrian President Bashar Assad interrupted a speech he was giving to parliament, to say he needed to “sit down for a minute” after suffering a brief drop in blood pressure.

Assad, 54, was half-an-hour through his speech when he began appearing tired and halted his speech twice to take a sip of water from a glass in front of him.

He was speaking about US sanctions on Syria and the economic crisis in the war-ravaged country when he told his audience: “My blood pressure has dropped and I need to drink water.”

Shortly afterwards, he said: “I need to sit for a minute if you don’t mind,” before exiting the room.

It was not clear how long he was away but when he returned, Assad, a trained optician, joked that “doctors are the worst patients”. He was greeted by applause from the MPs before him.

“I haven’t eaten since yesterday afternoon. I have no sugar or salt and this happens,” he added.

Assad spoke from a podium to the members of parliament wearing masks and social distancing, seated at least 2 metres apart in a huge hall.

Syria has seen a rising number of coronavirus infections recently, although the overall reported numbers remain low with 1,327 confirmed cases and 53 deaths. Limited testing facilities and Syrian government control over pandemic statistics have led to concerns that the real number of cases is much higher than what is being reported.

Earlier, the presidency’s office said the speech was halted for “several minutes” because of a “mild” case of low blood pressure the president suffered, after which he continued the speech as normal.

The presidency’s Facebook page posted that the speech would be aired later on Wednesday. It did not provide further details. Assad, 54, is not known to have any specific health condition.

Assad gave the speech on the occasion of the first parliament session after elections were held last month. The vote was the third to take place in Syria since the country’s conflict began in 2011.

The elections also coincided with Syria’s worst economic crisis and a currency crash, which has dragged more of the country’s population into poverty.

Tomorrow the Prime Minister is to make a key note speech on extremism and ISIS and is set to outline how the group uses men and women, boys and girls, to promote it’s nihilism through death and destruction. Yet the Prime Minister’s speech will also be notable for one other element which the Government has said it wants to tackle; this includes the environment of conspiracy theories, fear and sometimes purposeful disinformation that some groups promote in order to ensure disengagement by some sections of Muslim communities from civic structures.

In tackling this, the Prime Minister is linking an environment which creates fear, apprehension and disengagement to the extremism agenda. In effect, the Government are saying that they see the people promoting this disengagement as being part of the problem and not the solution and tomorrow’s speech will open up a new front against these groups and the comments are telling. The Prime Minister and his Government will tackle such groups, as well as those espousing extremist or violent extremist groups.

There are other elements that the Prime Minister will raise which will be a subject of much debate. Yet, the Prime Minister will be outlining his red lines, some of which may take in groups which previously have not been tackled and who have openly stated that they are against violent action.