Politics

Kurdistan Region reports 14 new coronavirus cases

On Thursday, the Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) Health Ministry announced 14 new cases of COVID-19, all but one occurring in Erbil province. The remaining newly-recorded positive test result came from a man in Sulamiani who had passed away from complications associated with the highly-infections disease.

Halgurd Sherwani 2020/04/30 20:10

kurdistan Kurdistan KRG Health COVID-19 Coronavirus Erbil Soran

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – On Thursday, the Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) Health Ministry announced 14 new cases of COVID-19, all but one occurring in Erbil province.

The remaining newly-recorded positive test result came from a 75-year-old woman in Sulamiani.

Although the regionwide curfew is set to expire on Saturday, it has been extended several times as previous expiration dates approached and it is not known whether authorities will choose to do so again.

When the last extension was announced on April 23, senior officials stressed that the virus remains a serious danger and warned that new outbreaks were still a possibility if the public should fail to observe measures to limit transmission.

“The preventative measures came into place in a phased manner, and, similarly, the [KRG] has decided to normalize the situation in stages,” Kurdistan Region Health Minister Saman Barzinjy said at the time.

“We still have [coronavirus] patients in hospitals and we still have citizens in quarantine,” he added.

According to the latest information on the KRG website's coronavirus page, 9,561 individuals have been quarantined so far, with 1,648 still under the restriction.

A health ministry statement said that 1,406 tests were recently given in the region, with 14 coming back as positive. Thirteen of them, including four men, five women, and four children, were from Erbil province.

The total number of infections so far in the Kurdistan Region is 380. The total number of deaths as of April 30 is five, according to the ministry.

On Tuesday, the World Health Organization (WHO) in Iraq applauded the Kurdistan Region's ongoing response to the coronavirus pandemic on Tuesday, pointing out the stark contrast to the relatively small number of known infections in the autonomous region when compared with the rest of Iraq.

"I want to congratulate the Kurdistan Region on their achievement in fighting the coronavirus," said the organization's representative to Iraq, Dr Adham Ismail, during a press conference held in Erbil.

He added, "The rate of COVID-19 infections and fatalities in the region is very low compared to other Iraqi governorates, but its threat is not over," stressing that the organization is ready to provide technical support to the region in limiting further outbreaks of the deadly virus.

The disease was first reported by Chinese authorities in late 2019 and has since spread in over 180 countries worldwide. To date, it has infected over 3.26 million people and killed more than 230,000, according to government-reported data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The actual figures could be dramatically higher due to insufficient testing capabilities or underreporting, particularly in countries that have weak health systems.

Editing by John J. Catherine

(A previous version of this report incorrectly stated that the health ministry had reported six deaths on April 30, 2020. This has been since corrected to reflect the actual number, which is five.)