Sulaymaniyah Health Director warns of rise in covid cases, governor says situation under control

Kurdistan 12:06 PM - 2021-03-27

Dr. Sabah Hawrami, Director-General of Sulaymaniyah Health Directorate

On Saturday, the Sulaymaniyah Health Directorate announced that the rate of coronavirus infections is continuously increasing due to the negligence in following preventive measures by citizens, while the Sulaymaniyah Governor affirmed that the situation is so far under control.

 

Dr. Sabah Hawrami, Director-General of Sulaymaniyah Health Directorate, said during a special statement to PUKmedia that the Sulaymaniyah Health Directorate was able to provide the necessary laboratory supplies to determine the types of coronavirus and that 4 types of mutated coronavirus were found among the infected.

 

He pointed out that they registered the 2 British types of coronavirus, the Brazilian, and the old virus that spread from the Chinese city of Wuhan, and that the Sulaymaniyah Health Directorate is continuing its practical research to follow up the spread of the virus.

 

"The only way to defeat the coronavirus is to follow health instructions, in addition to providing the anti-virus vaccine, and we received two batches of the vaccine, the first being the Chinese vaccine that was presented as a gift and the other is the British AstraZeneca vaccine, which was provided by the federal government," he said.

 

Dr. Sabah confirmed that the Sulaymaniyah health is continuously monitoring the health conditions, stressing the need to tighten preventive measures in all governorates of the Kurdistan Region, indicating that the Ministry of Health will present recommendations to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), stressing the need to close public and crowded places to prevent the spread of coronavirus further.

 

Dr. Sabah Hawrami called on all citizens to continue to follow health instructions, especially people who have not been infected with the virus so far, stressing that the risks of coronavirus to citizens still exist.

 

Sulaymaniyah Governor: Health conditions have not gone out of control

On Saturday, the Governor of Sulaymaniyah announced that the Supreme Committee to Fight Coronavirus will meet soon to take the necessary decisions to determine health measures to prevent further spread of the coronavirus.

 

Haval Abu Bakr said during a press conference: "We in Sulaymaniyah Governorate believe that the preventive measures should be in a new form and not as happened last year."

 

He added: "We believe that the task of basic prevention should be on the shoulders of the citizens, and the task of providing the anti-coronavirus vaccine and the necessary treatments for citizens should be the responsibility of the government."

 

The governor stressed that citizens must adhere to health instructions to reduce the rate of infections and deaths, noting that the health conditions in the governorate are under control, explaining: "The Ministry of Education decided to conduct exams for all schools and prevent students from gathering in classes and did not stop studies permanently."

 

He pointed out that the Sulaymaniyah governorate's share of the AstraZeneca vaccine is 20 thousand doses which the Iraqi government provided based on the proportion of the population of the governorate, hoping that the KRG manages to provide another batch for citizens.

 

On Friday, the Kurdistan Region's Minister of Health, Dr. Saman Barzanji, announced that the first batch of the anti-coronavirus AstraZeneca vaccine arrived in the Kurdistan Region, which consists of 43,800 doses.

 

While the Iraqi Ministry of Health announced on Thursday that 336,000 doses of the vaccine had arrived, which is part of 16 million doses that will arrive in Iraq.

 

Regarding the Kurdistan Region’s share of the vaccine, Dr. Aso Hawezy, the spokesman for the Ministry of Health in the Kurdistan Region, said during a special statement to PUKmedia, that the region’s share of the AstraZeneca vaccine is 336,000 vaccine doses.

 

Hawezy indicated that, according to the information available to them, it is expected that more than 10 million vaccine doses will arrive in Iraq during the next ten days, indicating that the Kurdistan Region will have a share of these vaccines as well.

 

So far the Kurdistan Region has recorded over 118,000 with more than 107,000 and over 3,600 deaths from the virus. 

 

 

 

PUKmedia