Kurdistan Region again dedicates much of Duhok's largest hospital to treating COVID-19

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Kurdistan Region's northern province of Dohuk has again designated a large portion of its largest hospital to be fully dedicated to treating the growing numbers of people infected with the coronavirus, largely due to the outbreak of the highly contagious Delta variant in the autonomous region of Iraq.

In a press conference on Thursday, Azadi General Hospital Director Sakfan Suleman stressed the crucial need for the general population to strictly follow all health instructions and preventive measures, such as masking and social distancing, in avoiding new case figures from skyrocketing further.

The facility was built in the 1980s and receives hundreds of patients on a daily basis.

Last August, the Directorate of Health in Dohuk had repurposed the entire hospital to treating coronavirus, with the exception of the emergency unit. After the number of infections had decreased in recent months, it restored the hospital to its original state, but health officials are continuing to make additional changes as they reassess the ever-changing situation.

At the same time, the Kurdistan Region’s Ministry of Health announced 3,220 new infections and 14 deaths during the past 24 hours, increasing the total number of infections in the region to 247,271, including 4,872 deaths since the spread of the virus in the region in March 2020.

A statement released on Wednesday by the Erbil Operation Room, a COVID-19 task force in the regional capital, detailed newly-returned restrictions that it said would be tightly enforced.

Read More: Erbil tightens COVID-19 precautionary measures as virus surges

According to the plan, police and Zeravani under the interior ministry’s control, plus observers from the mayor’s office, will be deployed in public spaces to monitor the enforcement of COVID-19 measures, particularly mask-wearing, according to the statement.

Editing by John J. Catherine