KERBALA, Iraq (Reuters) – The sacred Shiite city of Kerbala, home to pilgrims from around the world, now finds dozens of COVID-19 patients in buildings belonging to the shrine of Imam Hussein, one of Iraq’s top powerful religious authorities.
The sanctuary has also built 10 medical centers across the country and aims to build 10 more, which will be permanently delivered to the Ministry of Health, adding 2,000 beds to the country’s total capacity, a sanctuary official said.
Iraq is increasingly dependent on a devout government for its battered fitness formula as hospitals deal with an influx of coronavirus patients and shortages of supplies.
Decades of chronic underinvestment, corruption and war have left the Iraqi public sector dependent on donations.
A spokesman for the Department of Health not without delay to comment.
The shrine, based in the city of Kerbala, is one of many Shiite organizations in Iraq that are helping.
The financially resilient and self-sufficient government has built clinics, imported medical devices and distributed oxygen in recent months.
“When we see that what we have to have is not enough, we have to intervene,” said Afdhal al-Shammi, a senior official at Imam Hussein’s shrine.
His number one project is to manage Islamic donations (sanctuaries and mosques) and much of his investment comes from donations from pilgrims and philanthropists.
According to Ministry of Health figures, new infections accumulate in Iraq at the rate of about 3,000 a day, with a total of about 140,000 cases, killing more than 5,000 people.
In the Shia holy city of Najaf, where the great Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is based, its social welfare base is helping.
“Today, only in Najaf, but in Iraq in general, we lack smart infrastructure, hospital beds, hospitals, specialty clinics,” Radwan Kamel al-Kindi, ceo of Najaf’s fitness management, told Reuters.
Private corporations are also involved, for example, through the structure of the country’s first coronavirus center in Najaf, which is now run by the fitness government.
Reporting through the Baghdad Press Room, written through Amina Ismail and Charlotte Bruneau; edited through Alexandra Hudson
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