The first patient with COVID-19 was reported in Iraq on 24 February 2020 for the Iranian student came from Iran. As of 24 May 2020, the confirmed cases of COVID-19 infections reached 4469, with 160 deaths and 2738 patients were recovered from the infection. Significant public health strategies have been implemented by the authorities to contain the outbreak nationwide. Nevertheless however, the number of cases is still rising dramatically. Here, we aim to describe a comprehensive and epidemiological study of all cases diagnosed in Iraq by 24 May 2020. Most of the cases were recorded in Baghdad followed by Basra and Najaf. About 45% of the patients were female (with 31% deaths of the total cases) and 55% were male (with 68% deaths of the total cases). Most cases are between the ages of (20-59) years old, and (30-39) years are the most affected range (19%) Approximately (8%) of cases are children under 10 years old. Iraq has shown a cure rate lower than those reported by Iran, Turkey and Jordan; and higher than Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Healthcare workers represented about (5%) of the total confirmed cases. These findings enable us to understand COVID-19 epidemiology and prevalence in Iraq that can alert the our community to the risk of this novel coronavirus and serve as a baseline for future studies.

OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study was to evaluate the present status of amoebiasis in Thi-Qar Province in southern Iraq, and to determine the presence of <i>Entamoeba histolytica</i> and <i>Entamoeba dispar</i> with nested and real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR).METHODS: Epidemiological data were obtained from the public health department of the Thi-Qar Health Office (2015-2020). Eighty stool samples were also randomly collected from patients ≤12 year of age with diarrhea at 2 hospitals between the beginning of February 2020 and the end of October 2020. These samples were selected after microscopy to identify the <i>18S rRNA</i> gene in <i>Entamoeba</i> DNA.RESULTS: Of the 341,554 cases of intestinal parasitic infections, 38,004 (11.1%) individuals were recorded as having amoebiasis, which accounted for the highest proportion of infections in 2015 (26.1%) and the lowest in 2020 (8.1%). Amoebiasis was distributed among all age groups, with the age group of 5-14 years accounting for the highest proportion (27.3%). In molecular testing, 42 (52.5%) out of 80 samples were positive for the <i>18S rRNA</i> gene (888 bp). Using nested PCR, <i>E. histolytica</i> (439 bp) was detected in 25 (31.3%) samples and <i>E. dispar</i> (174 bp) in 14 (17.5%), while using real-time PCR, <i>E. histolytica</i> and <i>E. dispar</i> were detected in 28 (35.0%) and 15 (18.8%) samples, respectively.CONCLUSIONS: Epidemiological data confirmed that amoebiasis is endemic in this province, and is not limited to certain months. Our study confirms the applicability of molecular identification to detect pathogenic and non-pathogenic <i>Entamoeba</i> to prescribe the appropriate drug.

Several studies have demonstrated that age, comorbidities, and abnormalities in different clinical biomarkers can be important to understand disease severity. Although clinical features of COVID-19 have been widely described, the assessment of alterations of the most common biochemical markers that are reported in patients with COVID-19 still has not been well established. Here, we report clinical and blood biochemical indicators of 100 patients with COVID-19. Throat-swab upper respiratory samples were obtained from patients and real-time PCR was used to confirm SARS-CoV-2 infection. Gender, age, and clinical features such as diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and smoking habits were investigated. Biochemical parameters were categorized and analyzed according to these clinical characteristics. Triglycerides, GPT, and ALP are the biochemical markers that changed the most in the group of hypertension patients. Cholesterol and triglycerides were significantly different ( P = 0.01 ; P = 0.04 , respectively) between diabetic and nondiabetic patients with COVID-19. Potassium levels were significantly different ( P = 0.03 ) when comparing smokers with nonsmoker patients. Our results suggest several potential biochemical indexes that changed in patients with COVID-19 and whether certain comorbidity and clinical characteristics influence these markers.

Introduction: Cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) is one of wobbling endemic disease in Iraq, that cause intracellular obligate protistan parasite returned to the genus Leishmania. This study is aimed to identify epidemiology of CL, detect the prevalence of Leishmania tropica and find the phylogenetic relationship. Methodology: The current study was conducted in the main hospitals of Thi-Qar province-south of Iraq for period from November 2018 to October 2019. Nested-PCR was used to amplify kinetoplast minicircle fragments DNA. Results: It was recorded 247 clinical cases with CL, the infections of males were higher than females, while infection rate appeared gradual reduction with age progress. Furthermore, the most CL infections were as single lesions and occurred in December. The infections of upper limbs were high when compared with other body regions. The molecular diagnosis showed L. tropica was more frequently. DNA sequences of kDNA gene of L. tropica showed confirmative genetic detection of local isolates using NCBI-Blast data and phylogenetic tree analysis after comparison with global recorded isolates. The local L. tropica isolates showed genetically closed related to NCBI-Blast L. tropica with accession number AB678350.1. Generally, the analysis of kDNA nitrogen bases sequences showed that all of samples were consistent with those recorded at the NCBI. Conclusion: The kDNA minicircle sequences analysis results showed mismatching of the local isolates decrease whenever approached from the Iranian border. In addition, genetic heterogeneity diagnosis is important for detection of therapy, control and epidemiological studies.

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