Kaka'i villages in Kirkuk province lack health services. Many who are infected with the COVID-19 virus don’t even get basic treatment in their regions.
For 14 Kaka’i-majority villages in Daquq, there is only one medical centre (Topzawa), which neither has any specialists nor equipped to test patients for Coronavirus infection.
17-year-old Sozan Sléman went to Daquq General Hospital for treatment for a COVID-19 infection.
“The hospital staff and doctors cared well for us; they were constantly checking on us and provided us with the necessary medicine,” Sozan told KirkukNow.
Unlike Sozan, many are not able to get such care because their villages are located further from Daquq.
More than 3,000 people live in the 14 villages that only have one medical centre.
A source from Daquq Health Directorate, who is not authorised to talk to the press and therefore wished to remain unnamed, told KirkukNow that more than 1,200 cases of COVID-19 infections have been registered in Daquq district, of which 80 were from the Kaka’i community.
21 patients, 5 of them Kaka’is, have died after contracting the virus, the source added.
In Kirkuk province, each day 5,000 people are tested for COVID-19 infection, of whom between 200 and 500 test positive.
The head of Daquq General Hospital, Farman Talabani, told KirkukNow that they have sent their teams to the Kaka’i villages to spread awareness about the COVID-19 and spay disinfectants in cooperation with Topzawa medical centre.
It is not clear when a vaccine will reach Iraq.
