Virus cases continue climb in Kurdistan's Duhok, as KRG reports over 500 infections

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Kurdistan Region's Ministry of Health on Saturday announced over 500 new coronavirus cases and 12 deaths due to the disease over the past 24 hours.

A ministry statement said that health workers had conducted 4,530 tests in the past 24 hours, with 574 of them coming back positive: 156 in Erbil province, 11 in Sulaimani, and 307 in Duhok.

The statement also mentioned twelve fatalities (three in Erbil, three in Sulaimani, and six in Duhok) and 500 recoveries.

According to the region's latest health figures, the number of infections in the Kurdistan Region reached 35,983, including 22,826 recoveries and 1,320 deaths.

It is important to note that a patient classified as a "recovery" means they are no longer actively treated by health professionals, not that they have fully recovered.

Increasingly, medical experts recognize that some COVID-19 symptoms, such as chronic fatigue, often continue long after an individual's formal recovery and that various other symptoms, including significant lung damage, could be permanent.

Lately, the Kurdistan Region has witnessed new surges in coronavirus cases across its provinces, particularly in Duhok and Erbil, which had enjoyed fewer daily infections in past months.

"Duhok's situation was better in comparison to the rest of the region," Dr. Shahram Aziz, a doctor in Duhok, told Kurdistan 24, referencing the previous six months of the pandemic.

Daily cases averaged around 15 in late July when infections were spiking across other parts of the region. Starting in August, however, provincial authorities started to record ever-growing numbers.

The highest number of cases in a single day Duhok has ever reported, 349, came on Monday.

This came "after easing restrictions and allowing movement from other areas to Duhok," Dr. Aziz noted.

Even as the health professional warned against taking lax measures against the further spread of the coronavirus, travel companies continue to call for the resumption of tourism, a ban on which remains in effect only in Duhok as part of health measures to curb the virus.

Editing by Khrush Najari