SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Iraq has recorded 12,185 COVID-19 infections over the past 24 hours, the health ministry said on Monday, the highest number detected in a single day so far in the pandemic.
In a statement, the ministry of health said it had recorded 2,995 new cases in Baghdad, 1,364 in Duhok, 1,129 in Sulaimani, 977 in Dhi Qar, 931 in Wasit, 875 in Basra and 757 in Erbil.
It added that 452 other cases in Karbala, 421 in Nineveh, 400 in Maysan, 391 in Diyala, 324 in Diwaniyah, 273 in Babil, 253 in Najaf, 239 in Saladin, 182 in Kirkuk, 111 in Anbar and 111 more in Muthanna.
As many as 71 other patients had died from the virus and 8,547 others had recovered, the health ministry stated.
More than 1.5 million people have now tested positive and 18,418 have officially died of Covid-19 in Iraq, where the health infrastructure is dilapidated.
Much of the 40-million-strong population remains skeptical of vaccines, with more than 1.48 million having been inoculated, the health ministry says.
It is not clear how many of those have received two jabs.
The authorities have struggled to persuade people to get vaccinated and to abide by measures such as wearing face masks in public.
Earlier this month, Sarmad al-Qarlousi, who heads Baghdad’s Al-Kindi Hospital, warned that unless more people get jabbed, Iraq will spiral towards “an epidemiological catastrophe”.
A ministry spokesman has blamed a reluctance to get inoculated on a “misinformation campaign which preceded the arrival of the vaccine”.
