Politics

COVID-19: Baghdad reports 2,700 new infections, as Iraq becomes Arab country with most deaths

Iraq's Ministry of Health and Environment announced on Monday that it had found over 2,700 cases of COVID-19 in tests conducted during the past 24 hours, as it also reported that there had been over 60 deaths due to the disease, bringing the total number of such deaths to nearly 5,000.

Halgurd Sherwani 2020/08/03 12:54

middle east Iraq Pandemic COVID-19 Coronavirus

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Iraq's Ministry of Health and Environment announced on Monday that it had found over 2,700 cases of COVID-19 in tests conducted during the past 24 hours, as it also reported that there had been over 60 deaths due to the disease, bringing the total number of such deaths to nearly 5,000.

Iraq is thus, now, the Arab country with the most number of coronavirus deaths—both in terms of absolute deaths and deaths per capita, according to the authoritative data base maintained by Johns Hopkins University.

According to Monday’s figures, as recorded by Johns Hopkins, Iraq has suffered 4,934 deaths, while Egypt has 4,865. Taking the size of the population of each country into account, those figures become stark. The population of Iraq is nearly 40 million, while the population of Egypt is nearly 100 million—over twice as much.

Thus, while Iraq has slightly more coronavirus deaths than Egypt, which has the second largest number of such deaths among Arab countries, Iraq has over twice as many per capita.

The large number of coronavirus cases in Iraq is due, in substantial part, to its dealings with neighboring Iran, which was the epicenter of the virus in the Middle East, because of its close ties with China, where the disease began.

Iran now officially reports over 17,000 deaths from the coronavirus. However, on Monday, the BBC reported that the real figure is likely “nearly triple” that number, based on health records provided to it by an Iranian whistle-blower.

According to Iraq’s health ministry, 13,647 coronavirus tests were conducted over the past 24 hours, raising the total number of such tests to 1,042,806 since the pandemic began.

The total number of coronavirus cases in Iraq rose by 2,735 to 131,886 over the past 24 hours, according to the ministry. Of the total confirmed infections, 94,111 individuals have recovered.

The ministry also reported 66 new coronavirus-related deaths over the past 24 hours.

With cases of COVID-19 continuing to rise in Iraq, the country’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) announced on Sunday that Turkish authorities had suspended all commercial flights to and from Iraq – including the Kurdistan Region – until September 1, at the request of the Turkish Health Ministry.

The Turkish announcement follows the July 23 reopening of Iraqi airports to commercial flights, after a five-month-long ban on air travel, which had been imposed to stem the spread of the virus.

For the past forty years—since Saddam Hussein’s assault on Iran in September 1980, following Iran’s Islamic revolution—Iraq has suffered nearly continuous conflict and economic sanctions.

One result has been a weak health infrastructure, which is now overwhelmed with the increasing coronavirus cases. A lack of trained health workers, alongside shortages in public hospitals of such necessities like oxygen, has exacerbated the severity of the pandemic in Iraq.

Editing by Laurie Mylroie