Thursday, the Iraqi Minister of Health Hassan Al-Tamimi said in a press conference that Iraq has been witnessing a huge increase in the number of new cases of the mutated COVID-19 strain over the past three days.

Tamimi added that more than 50 percent of the new COVID-19 cases confirmed in Iraq are of the mutated strains.

He called for avoiding movement between cities, as well as avoiding gatherings in order to limit the spread of the virus.

Notably, Iraq has imposed a curfew from 8am until 5am starting Thursday for a period of two weeks.

Iraq has confirmed 653,557 coronavirus cases and 13,204 deaths since the start of the pandemic.