MOH: Inclusive tests for COVID-19 in all the schools

INA - Baghdad - Muhammad al-Talibi

Ministry of Health and Environment directed the medical and health teams to conduct inclusive epidemiological tests with the start of the school year for all schools within their geographical area to ensure that students or teaching bodies are not diagnosed with COVID-19.

"The ministry has been studying with the Ministry of Education the necessary mechanisms for several months to announce the start of the new school year so that an academic year will not be lost for students,” Minister of Health and Environment, Hassan Al-Tamimi told Iraqi News Agency (INA).

Al-Tamimi added that the necessary mechanisms have been prepared for the start of the new school year in coordination with the Ministries of Education, Higher Education and the World Health Organization - WHO, pointing out that "the Ministry of Health provided the Ministries of Education more than a month ago with the basic points for the start of the school year through which students can be preserved from COVID-19,"

"The points were presented to the Higher Authority for National Safety, and the Ministry of Education answered these questions, specifying the time for one day per week, with the distribution of one level into several classes and adding the Saturday to the rest of the week, excluding it from the official holidays for schools,” he explained.

Al-Tamimi confirmed that he directed health teams to follow up the measures taken by the Ministry of Education and a sample was used for seven schools followed up by health teams within the areas supervised by the health departments, pointing out that “the number of students was determined to be betwwen 10 to 12 per class. After that the decision was made to start the school year on November 29,”