COVID-19 pandemic in Iraq

[3] By April, the number of confirmed cases had exceeded the hundred mark in Baghdad, Basra, Sulaymaniyah, Erbil and Najaf.

[4][non-primary source needed] As of 7 April 2020, officially 28,414 tests have been done in Iraq as a whole (including the Kurdistan Region), with 1202 of them turning out positive.

Iraq is considered "especially vulnerable to the epidemic due to being ravaged" – by war and United Nations sanctions, and by sectarian conflict over the past three decades.

[5] Illness is stigmatized in Iraq, and there is concern that this discourages many Iraqis from seeking medical care and getting tested, which may result in an undercount of cases.

[6] In addition, authorities worry the tradition of washing the body after death could increase the spread of COVID-19.

A suspected case in the province of Dhi Qar was reported in Iraq on 22 February, which was later confirmed to be positive according to a local medical centre,[7] but this was denied by the Iraqi Ministry of Health.

[11][12] On 3 March, a 70-year-old Iraqi Islamic preacher, Rashid Abdulrahman, became the first fatality in Iraq due to the outbreak.

[13] It was reported that the preacher from Sulaymaniyah District, had chronic heart failure and underlying asthma conditions on top of COVID-19.

[14] On 4 March, the country's Ministry of Health spokesman Saif Al-Badr also confirmed a second death in Baghdad and 32 cases of the virus.

[25] Included, was the first reported case in the Saladin Governorate of a woman in the town of Ishaqi, thus' confirming the presence of the virus in all 19 Iraqi provinces for the first time.

[33] On 2 April, Iraq's Communications and Media Commission said that it had banned international news agency Reuters from operating in the country for three months for reporting that the number of the nation's novel coronavirus cases is much higher than official figures.

It added that the agency was fined $20,000 and asked to apologize due to the story, which has "put social security at risk.

The cases in Erbil were attributed to a banned funeral gathering on the 21 and 23 March, with investigations and tests ongoing, the number is set to continue to rise.

[37] The majority of those cases, 41 in total, were in the KRG capital of Erbil and 39 of them were related to the banned funeral gatherings that were discovered the previous day.

On 22 December 2020, Iraq signed a preliminary deal to receive 1.5 million doses of the Pfizer–BioNTech vaccine in early 2021.

[45] On 27 December 2020, Iraq's National Medicine Selection authority gave an emergency approval for the use of Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine.

The Minister of Health Hassan al-Timini said that the country will receive the vaccines along with special storage equipment needed to store it.

[49] In April 2021, UK contributed in supporting the UNDP to help Iraq fight the coronavirus by committing $4.2 million.

[51] On 24 April, the coronavirus ward at Ibn al-Khatib hospital in Baghdad caught fire.

[54][2][38] After the first death in Sheikh Saad, Wasit Governorate, the town placed into temporary lockdown after an elderly couple died from the coronavirus on 14 March.

[58] In response to the outbreak in Iraq, Jordan decided to restrict land and air travel with the country on 10 March.

[21][60][61] Iraq banned travelers from Qatar and Germany from 13 March in attempt to stop the disease from spreading.

[62] Travelers from Iran, Italy, China, France, Spain, Thailand, Singapore, South Korea, and Japan were also on the ban list.

[65] On 15 January 2021, Iraq announced a ban on its citizens from travelling to 20 countries where a new coronavirus variant was found.

[70] On 20 March 2020, the American-led Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR) confirmed that certain troops would be withdrawing from Iraq due to the pandemic.

[71] On that same day, United States Central Command ordered a 14-day "stop movement" preventing any U.S. troops from entering or leaving Iraq and Afghanistan because of the pandemic.

[72] The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has planned to take advantage of the vacuum in the Syrian Desert caused by the coronavirus-expedited withdrawal of U.S.