COVID-19: Kurdistan Region records over 400 new cases, 26 fatalities in 24 hours

To date, the Kurdistan Region has seen 95,638 cases of COVID-19.

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The health authorities of the Kurdistan Region announced over 400 new cases of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, raising the total infections to over 95,000.

In their daily coronavirus update, officials from the regional health ministry announced 403 new infections over the previous 24 hours out of more than 4,400 tests which were completed in that period.

The Kurdistan Region has seen a decrease in the number of new daily infections, as compared to recent weeks, in which it has experienced an alarming surge in daily infections.

To date, the Kurdistan Region has seen 95,638 cases of COVID-19.

Health authorities also announced 26 deaths over the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of fatalities to 3,104.

Officials have attributed the recent spike in the number of patients—at times over 1,000 new daily cases—primarily to the public’s failure to follow mandated health measures to stem the spread of the disease.

Health officials announced this week that over 31,000 COVID-19 patients are currently being treated in hospitals and clinics throughout the Kurdistan Region.

Read MoreCOVID-19: Kurdistan Region has over 31,000 patients under treatment

The health ministry has said that over 59,000 people have recovered from the coronavirus, but it is important to note that a “recovery” only indicates that a patient is no longer being actively treated by health professionals—not that they have fully recovered from the disease.

WHO “impressed” with KRG COVID-19 response

In a joint press conference with the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG’s) Health Minister, Saman Barjinjy, earlier this week, Adham Ismail, the outgoing representative of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Iraq, said he was “impressed with the health institutions and the Ministry of Health in Kurdistan who cooperated with the WHO in preparing plans to contain the virus among the people, the IDPs, and refugees in the region.”

Ismail also stated, “It is good that so far the region’s hospitals do not suffer from a lack of oxygen.”

Read More: WHO 'impressed' with Kurdistan Region's coronavirus response

The health problems of the Kurdistan Region are typical of the area, and, in fact, may be somewhat better.

Iran was the original epicenter of the virus in the Middle East, because of its close ties to China, where the virus first emerged. On Friday, Iran reported a new daily high in coronavirus infections, bringing that country’s total to 922,397 cases.

Iran has the eighth highest number of deaths from the coronavirus, according to the authoritative Johns Hopkins University database.

Iraq reported 2,545 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, bringing its total to 547,215. It is doing rather better than Iran, ranking number 23 on the database.

Editing by Laurie Mylroie