Document Type : Review Paper
Authors
- Raghda Alsayed 1
- Ali Abd Ali 1
- Raghda Makia 2
- Mohammed Kadhom 3
- Rasha Raheem 4
- Omar Al-Obaidi 5
- Angham Hadi 6
- Dana Khdr Sabir 7
- Emad Yousif 1
1 Department of Chemistry, College of Science, Al-Nahrain University, Baghdad, Iraq
2 College of Biotechnology, Al-Nahrain University, Baghdad, Iraq.
3 Department of Renewable Energy, College of Energy and Environmental Sciences, Alkarkh University of Science, Baghdad, Iraq.
4 Department of Pathology, Microbiology, and Immunology, University of South Carolina School of Medicine, Columbia, SC, United States of America.
5 Department of Chemistry, College of Science, University of Anbar, Anbar, Iraq.
6 Department of Chemistry, College of Science, Babylon University, Babil, Iraq.
7 Department of Medical Laboratory Sciences, Charmo University, Chamchamal, Kurdistan Region, Iraq.
Abstract
On the 31st of December 2019, China reported several pneumonia-like infections in Wuhan's Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market. Ten days later, a novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) was announced by the Chinese center for disease control (CCDC). At that time, the genome sequence was publicly made available. The genome sequence analysis of the newly identified virus was found similar to 75-80% of the SARS-CoV clade and more than 88% of bat corona viruses. On January 30th, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a state of emergency due to the COVID-19 epidemic. In March 2020, the WHO raised a state of emergency and declared that COVID-19 has become a pandemic. Unfortunately, Iraq confirmed the first cases of COVID-19 in February 2020. On April 25th, 46,135 tests were conducted in Iraq with 1763 positive cases. Although Iraq is making great efforts to contain the COVID-19 pandemic stimulating all the available capabilities, such as having a full lockdown and teaching people about the sickness danger, the numbers of cases and deaths started to dramatically increase in June. Now, on the 2nd of July, the infection and death cases were around 54 K and 2.2 K, respectively. Herein, we outline the challenges that the Iraqi health sector is facing to control the spread of COVID-19 with procedures followed so far. This could assist in understanding the severity of the situation and end up with a realistic understanding of it.
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