Erbil launches COVID-19 awareness campaign as KRG reports over 570 new cases
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – A top health official in Erbil province announced on Sunday a new campaign to spread awareness about the coronavirus disease as the Kurdistan Region's Health Ministry reported over 570 new cases of the virus.
During a press briefing in Erbil, Health Minister Saman Barzinji said that health workers had conducted 5,311 tests across the autonomous region in the past 24 hours, with 573 of them coming back positive.
An official statement also mentioned there had been 20 fatalities during the same period: nine in Sulaimani province, five in Erbil, five in Duhok, and one in Halabja. Adding the new figures, the region has recorded 1,340 deaths from the disease, officially referred to as COVID-19.
According to the region's latest health figures, the number of infections in the Kurdistan Region reached 36,556 cases since the onset of the pandemic in the Kurdistan Region, including 23,100 recoveries and 1,340 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.
Awareness Campaign
Erbil Health Department Director-General, Dr. Dlovan Mohammad, announced during a press conference a five-day-long campaign in the province in a bid to educate the public about the highly contagious diseases and ways to protect oneself against it.
The campaign consists of distributing informational brochures and face masks among residents of Erbil province and at its border crossings.
The World Health Organization (WHO), alongside local non-governmental organizations, will take part in the campaign, Mohammad added. A total of 35 teams will reportedly mobilize to participate in the campaign.
In late August, WHO initiated a "major COVID-19 prevention and containment campaign." It started in Sulaimani province, the initial epicenter of the coronavirus in the Kurdistan Region, due "mainly to its proximity and long borders with neighboring Iran."
Read More: Highest virus death toll in Kurdistan Region, as WHO and KRG launch COVID awareness campaign
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.
Editing by Khrush Najari