(MENAFN- Kuwait News Agency (KUNA))
BAGHDAD, Feb 24 (KUNA) -- Thirteen people who suffered from infection with the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) have given up the struggle for their lives and passed away, said the Iraqi Ministry of Health on Wednesday.
It added that in addition to the new batch of fatalities recorded over the past hours, the authorities listed 4,306 new infection cases, raising the caseload to 680,288 since local eruption of the pandemic, months ago.
Death toll now stands a 13,324 and total count of the recoveries amounts to 625,447.
The pandemic, initially thought to be a limited-scale epidemic, first erupted in central China, late last year, amid reports that the virus originated in some wild animals namely bats. Markets that sell wild animals for eating by some locals were eyed as source of the outbreak that later spilled over to hundreds of countries worldwide.
So far, up to 112 million people of diverse nationalities have been contaminated with the germ globally and 63.2 million of those infected have recovered. However, 2.48 million have succumbed to the germ, losing their lives in a chain of afflicted countries throughout the world.
The US alone has suffered more than half million fatalities due to the dreaded virus. (end)
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