COVID-19 Updates: 6 members of same family test positive in Sulaimani
In the evening coronavirus report released by the Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) Health Ministry, health officials reported six new cases registered in the past 24 hours as a result of 954 tests across the autonomous region, all of them in Sulaimani province and members of the same family.
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – In the evening coronavirus report released by the Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) Health Ministry, health officials reported six new cases registered in the past 24 hours as a result of 954 tests across the autonomous region, all of them in Sulaimani province and members of the same family.
One of them had been previously announced in an additional late night statement on Wednesday, but was added to the official tally on Thursday. Also on Wednesday, the federal government in Iraq reported 119 new cases in other parts of Iraq, an all time high since the pandemic first reached the nation.
Read More: Iraq records highest ever daily COVID-19 infections; Kurdistan reports 1
Sulaimani's infections come after the province had reported no new cases for 14 consecutive days and bring the total so far confirmed throughout the Kurdistan Region to 397, five of them fatal and 377 where the patients had recovered.
In late April, the representative of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Iraq applauded the success of the KRG's efforts to combat the disease. "I want to congratulate the Kurdistan Region on their achievement in fighting the coronavirus," he said. "The rate of COVID-19 infections and fatalities in the region is very low compared to other Iraqi governorates."
Read More: WHO congratulates Kurdistan Region on coronavirus response
Since the outbreak of the highly contagious virus in Kurdistan Region, health authorities had conducted 57,406 COVID-19 tests across the region, according to the ministry’s statement.
On Thursday, a KRG official expressed his concern about the still substantial number of new daily cases of the coronavirus throughout other parts of Iraq and stressed that the kind of widespread outbreak of the highly-contagious disease that the Kurdistan Region has so far been able to avoid is still possible.
Read More: Kurdistan Region 'concerned' about coronavirus spike in other parts of Iraq
“In the rest of the cities in Iraq, the number of new infections of the virus is still increasing and this prompts us to adhere to our own precautionary measures because fears of the virus in the region still exist,” said Reber Ahmed, the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) Minister of Interior during a press conference in Erbil.
Ahmed also explained that the KRG's strict protective measures enacted across the region had indeed further escalated the current economic crisis, but that “we sacrificed the economic aspect for the safety of citizens.”
“We do not want to say that we have won against the coronavirus, because without a vaccine, the threat still remains,” he added, pointing out that the virus does not stop at national or regional borders, so it must be limited through human behaviour.
On Wednesday, The KRG's Minister of Trade and Industry announced that it had established a new board tasked with ensuring that the pandemic and measures enacted to control it do not interrupt the adequate and reliable food supply available to residents.
Read More: Kurdistan creates board to ensure food security during COVID-19 pandemic
The coronavirus has infected over 4.4 million people worldwide and killed more than 302,000, according to government-reported data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The actual figures could be dramatically higher due to insufficient testing capabilities or underreporting.
Editing by John J. Catherine