COVID-19: Daily infection numbers down across Kurdistan Region

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Health officials in the Kurdistan Region announced on Saturday that 322 new coronavirus cases had been recorded over the previous 24 hours, a downtick in infections that they cautiously said that they hoped would continue.

In its daily report, the Ministry of Health reported 12 fatalities among patients who had contracted the highly contagious disease, five each in the provinces of Erbil and Sulaimani and two in Dohuk.

It also said that 706 patients had been discharged from hospitals or clinics in the same time period after their conditions had improved. This leaves 7,807 patients currently receiving treatment in various health facilities. 

This brings the total number of total infections throughout the Kurdistan Region since the first confirmed case in early 2020 to 368,698, including 6,651 deaths. 

On Wednesday, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) announced that it had allocated significant additional funds to support efforts to combat the coronavirus across the autonomous region of Iraq.

Read More: Kurdistan Region earmarks additional funds to contain COVID-19

A government statement explained that Prime Minister Masrour Barzani had "agreed to allocate additional funds to the health sector, based on the public interest, and in order to preserve the lives of the citizens of the Kurdistan Region."

These included "increasing the amount set for emergencies (purchasing medicines and medical requirements) from 1.5 billion dinars to five billion dinars to combat the coronavirus."

Also, some four billion dinars "were allocated to encourage doctors, nurses, health staff, and laboratory staff, as well as employees participating in teams specialized in combating the pandemic," plus another "150 million dinars per month for health awareness campaigns for citizens."