ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Medics were on Monday checking the body temperature of travelers arriving at Erbil’s Prde checkpoint, which monitors incoming traffic from the Kirkuk road – one of the main routes linking Erbil and Sulaimani, the Region’s second biggest city and site of its first four recorded cases of coronavirus.

Three members of the same family and another woman, all of whom were from Sulaimani and returnees from Iran, tested positive for the virus, otherwise known as Covid-19, on Sunday. The four are at a hospital designated for treatment of those affected by the illness, the KRG’s health ministry announced.

A fifth Kurdistan Region case of coronavirus was confirmed on Monday night by Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) health minister Saman Barzanji. The fifth confirmed case is a relative of the three family members confirmed to have tested positive for the illness on Sunday.

A total of 2484 people have been held in quarantine across the Kurdistan Region, health minister Barzanji said at Monday evening's press conference. Eighty-nine people suspected of having contracted coronavirus have been tested, he added. 

By detecting abnormally high body temperatures that could indicate a fever brought on by the virus, authorities at Prde hope to stop Covid-19 in its tracks before it reaches the Kurdistan Region capital.

Iraq has so far recorded 27 cases of the virus, with seven new cases recorded in the country on Monday. At least two of the most recent cases were returnees from Iran, a regional epicenter for the virus where sixty-six people have died and 1,501 people have tested positive, according to Tehran’s health ministry. 

Kurdish and Iraqi authorities have closed their borders with Iran, and Iraqi citizens returning from the country are undergoing 14 days in quarantine to prevent further spread of the virus. To dodge security checks and avoid the quarantine, some Kurdistan Region residents have been smuggled across the Iranian border, security officials (Asayesh) told Rudaw on Thursday.

With Iran’s healthcare system struggling to contend with the outbreak, a team of World Health Organisation officials landed in Tehran on Monday to work with “health and other authorities” and “review/support the ongoing response” to the outbreak, according to a tweet from the organization. Their plane also carried medical supplies and protective equipment. 

Germany, France and the UK have also pledged to send Iran medical and financial aid to fight the outbreak.

Northeast Syria’s autonomous administration has temporarily closed the Semalka border crossing in a bid to prevent spread of the virus across the border it shares with the Kurdistan Region. 

The novel virus was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan at the end of 2019. It has since spread to at least 56 countries and territories and has infected close to 90,000 people worldwide, with the global death toll surpassing 3,000.

While the rate of infection has slowed in China, other global hotspots are struggling to contain its spread.  Almost nine times more coronavirus cases were reported outside China than inside it in the last 24 hours, according to WHO. 

Photos: Safin Hamed / AFP