Following reports last week that two people had died of Coronavirus in Iraq’s eastern neighbour, Iran, a climate of fear reigned over the country. The central and local governments began enacting measures in order to prevent the virus from entering Iraq. Over the past week several border crossings have been closed, and reports claimed that airports will be screening all travelers and stopping all flights to Iran, while also banning Iranians from visiting the country in the meantime. Despite these measures, Iraq confirmed its first Coronavirus infection on Monday. According to a statement by Iraq’s Ministry of Health, the individual is an Iranian seminary student who had entered Iraq prior to the ban. The student, who is a theology student in the Najaf Seminary, was immediately taken to the hospital, where he was quarantined. On Tuesday, Iraq’s state-sponsored TV station al-Iraqiya said that the Iranian student had been transferred back to Iran, where he will be getting medical help.
This announcement came hours after Iraq’s Ministry of Health announced that four citizens were discovered to have been affected by the virus in Kirkuk Province. According to reports, the four citizens who are members of the same family had arrived back from the city of Qom in Iran almost eight days ago. Sources claimed that the four citizens went to the hospital on Monday night, where they were screened, confirmed to be carrying the virus and then quarantined to prevent further spread of the Coronavirus. While rumours online claimed that the four individuals “escaped” the hospital, the Kirkuk Health Authorities confirmed that the family is still under quarantine.
Despite the Iraqi Ministry of Health continuing its screenings of citizens in both Najaf, Kirkuk and other provinces throughout the country, the emergence of fake news reports and rumours online, has resulted in an atmosphere of panic and fear. As a result, eight different provinces have announced that schools and universities will be stopped from a period ranging from 14 days to one month in order to counter the spread of the virus.
Increasing reports from around the country have claimed that pharmacies and medical supply centre’s have been engaging in price gouging with medical masks increasing in price from 500 IQD to at least 5,000 IQD and 15,000 IQD in some cases. As a result the Ministry of Health issued a statement on Tuesday stressing the importance of following up with pharmacies to ensure that this crisis is not being taken advantage of to monopolise and raise the prices of medical equipment. The statement also announced the halting of flights from and to Iran, China, Thailand, South Korea, Japan, Italy and Singapore.
As health professionals continue to scurry for aid in containing the virus, the representative of the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Iraq, Adham Ismael, said late on Monday, that the Coronavirus would not be able to resist the hot climate in Iraq during the summer season. Ismael also revealed that the WHO is closely following the situation in Iraq, adding that it is continuing to supply Iraq with the necessary equipment and medical consultations.
Nonetheless, the country is still at risk of a possible health catastrophe. While these preventative measures and efforts to contain the virus have succeeded thus far, if the country is not able to enforce these measures or discover further cases of the virus in time, the poor health situation in the country can potentially lead to a spike in Coronavirus infections. Health practitioners have warned that the country does not have the capacity to properly treat and test for infections in individuals allegedly carrying the virus.
Over the past several decades, healthcare in Iraq has significantly deteriorated due to the continued wars and the corruption with the ministry. The extent of the corruption was revealed last year when Health Minister, and Former Regional Director of the WHO Region of the Eastern Mediterranean, Alaa al-Alwan resigned from his position due to corruption within the ministry and political pressure. According to al-Alwan, the Ministry was not being allocated enough funds, and the funds that were allocated were being funneled to political parties and individuals rather than actually implementing health projects.
To make matters worse, the deterioration of the official health systems in the country has resulted in the emergence of non-professional clinicians who prescribe medicines and administer shots to ailing patients. According to some reports, these faux-clinicians have wrongly administered medicines to patients who have ended up losing there lives. This comes as increasing reports in the past have claimed that many of the medicines that have been imported to Iraq have either expired or are counterfeit.
While seeking to avoid alarmist tropes, the necessity of improving the health structures in the country is now needed more than ever. In coordination with the WHO and other healthcare organisations, the Iraqi Government should seek to implement measures that not only prevent the Coronavirus from entering the country, but also seeking to provide treatment for those already in the country. Furthermore, public health campaigns must be launched on a wide-scale level in order to educate the public on the proper means of preventing both Coronavirus infections as well as other diseases that continue to emerge in Iraq, like Typhoid and Hepatitis A and B, which are still heavily impacting the country despite the availability of precautionary vaccinations.
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