Medical staff checking passengers arriving from Iran in the airport in Najaf, Iraq, over coronavirus, February 21, 2020. Photo: AP
NAJAF, Iraq,— Local health officials in the Iraqi holy Shi’ite city of Najaf have detected the first case of coronavirus in the country, an Iranian theology student, the health ministry said on Monday.
The patient had entered Iraq before the government shut border crossings and banned the entry of any non-Iraqis coming from Iran, the ministry said in a statement.
“It has become clear to the ministry that the results of lab tests conducted on a theology student, an Iranian citizen, who had entered the country before … the decision to stop travel have revealed he is ill with the coronavirus,” it said.
Iraq’s Kurdistan reports no coronavirus cases so far.
Kurdistan Regional Government KRG has assigned a budget to help prevent an outbreak in the Kurdistan Region.
People who have arrived in Iraqi Kurdistan from Iran in recent weeks have been taken to a special centre in Erbil to undergo a 14-day monitoring period in order to make sure they are not infected with the virus.
The KRG has also quarantined hundreds of people newly returned from Iran in two hotels in Soran, and has barred visitors from the local hospital.
Furthermore, Iraqis are not permitted to visit Iran unless they are part of a diplomatic delegation, and the federal government has suspended all Iraqi Airlines flights serving Najaf and Baghdad routes to Iran until further notice.
The Kurdistan Region’s Ministry of Health on Saturday announced that one of its mobile teams had closed a number of medical stores and pharmacies in Erbil for “manipulating” the prices of highly sought-after medical products, including face masks as demand dramatically rose for them in response to the worldwide outbreak of the coronavirus that began in China.
The team has closed “twelve medical stores and one pharmacy,” said the ministry, for increasing prices and manipulating medical supplies in the capital of the Kurdistan Region.
Iraqi Airways said on Friday that all flights between Kurdistan Region and Tehran have been suspended due to the developing coronavirus outbreak in Iran.
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