Many governorates recorded an increase in the number of hemorrhagic fever cases, and based on its humanitarian principles, the Iraqi Red Crescent Society (IRCS) has launched a health awareness campaign in all governorates to reduce the spread of this epidemic disease and prevent the occurrence of new infections.

Dr. Ali Al-Moussawi, the director of the health department in the IRCS, has explained that a crisis cell was formed to find out the ramifications of hemorrhagic fever spread after the increase in infections with this epidemic disease in many governorates.

Al-Moussawi has continued that the teams of the IRCS have started a health awareness campaign that covered various segments of community, especially in rural and popular areas.

“The health teams of the IRCS were spread in the areas where the virus hotspots appeared, such as the areas where livestock and sheep breeding and butcher shops abound, as the health teams have distributed the awareness folders and posters on how to prevent this disease and reduce its spread, adding to conduct direct meetings with the owners of butcher shops and meat, and warning them against indiscriminate slaughter in the streets and on sidewalks.”, Dr. Ali has added.

The hemorrhagic fever is a viral disease, where the death rate for those infected with it reaches 40%, according to the World Health Organization, and the virus is transmitted to humans through livestock and sheep, and it is also transmitted between humans through direct contact with the blood of the infected person, the cattle herders and butchers’ owners are the most vulnerable to the disease.

As for its initial symptoms, they are fever, muscle aches and abdominal pain, but when it develops, it leads to bleeding from the eyes, ears, and nose, leading to failure in the body’s organs.

Dr. Ali has indicated that the IRCS’s health teams are continuing with the health awareness campaigns in all governorates of Iraq, especially the regions and groups most likely to contract hemorrhagic fever, and the number of beneficiaries has reached more than 12 thousand people since the beginning of the campaign in mid-April.”