ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) Ministry of Health in a statement released on Monday afternoon affirmed that there have been no cases of the Chinese coronavirus in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
The statement came following claims circulating on social media that Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) had spread into certain areas in Kurdistan Region.
Social media is notoriously unreliable, and the allegations are completely groundless. The virus has not been detected in the Kurdistan Region, as the Ministry affirmed.
“We assure the people of the Kurdistan Region that the health institutions in Kurdistan have been closely observing and monitoring the situation in regard to the Coronavirus along with international stakeholders, and we will take every precautionary measure to prevent the spread of the disease,” the statement from the Ministry of Health said.
The statement also stressed, “With the exception of the KRG’s Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization (WHO), no other sources can be considered as reliable for confirming news of this sort.”
Origins of Coronavirus
The coronavirus began in China, where an unsanitary practice of mixing various live animals together to be sold in the market is common. Under such circumstances, diseases can jump from one animal to another, mutating in the process, and eventually infecting human beings.
In 2002, this Chinese practice led to a viral epidemic, known as SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), which killed over 800 people, before the disease faded away.
SARS showed the danger in mixing live animals, including wild game, in the fashion that is practiced in Chinese markets. Nonetheless, Chinese authorities failed to address the issue after the SARS epidemic. Nothing changed in the markets, and twenty years later the same conditions have produced another lethal virus.
So far, although cases have been reported throughout Asia, and there have been a few cases in the US and Europe, all fatalities have occurred in China—where the problem, itself, originated.
Other Measures
The Iraqi Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) issued a statement on Monday, explaining that medical teams are now examining travelers coming from China in order to prevent the virus from spreading to the country.
The initiative comes at a time when the National Health Commission of China said that the human transmission of the virus was getting stronger and that the number of infections was likely to continue to rise.
Serious questions have arisen as to whether Chinese authorities moved in time to address the danger from the virus. They have now begun playing the “blame-game” with the mayor of the city of Wuhan, where the virus originated, claiming that he could not publicly report the disease, until higher authorities gave him permission, which they were slow to do, he said.
The CAA said a specialized medical team is permanently present at all civil airports to examine travelers from China and Southeast Asia to ensure they are not infected with the coronavirus.
The number of deaths due to the coronavirus rose to 82 on Monday. All occurred in China, while 2,700 cases of the virus have been reported, with the overwhelming bulk of them in China itself.
Editing by Laurie Mylroie