SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Kurdistan Region reported the first death of Congo fever on Saturday, the Region’s ministry of health confirmed in a statement.
“A 27-year-old boy who was designated as infected before with Congo fever died today,” the ministry of health said in the statement.
According to the statement the patient was from Soran district and later died due to fatal health condition which resulted from the disease.
“The patient died due to fatal health condition and it was recorded as the first case of death in the Kurdistan Region,” it said.
The ministry of health is urging citizens to abide by health instructions and guidelines in order to avoid Congo fever.
Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever causes severe hemorrhaging, with people usually catching it through contact with the blood of infected animals, according to the World Health Organization.
The fever has a fatality rate of between 10 and 40 percent in all cases.
The disease has been endemic to Iraq since 1979, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). At times, small outbreaks have been reported, with the last outbreak happening in 2021 with 18 cases confirmed in Dhi Qar and Nineveh provinces.
