Hawzah News Agency (Najaf - Iraq) - Iraq’s top Shia cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani said the doctors and nurses who look after coronavirus patients and die as a result of contracting the disease should be deemed martyrs.

Answering an Istifta (religious inquiry), Ayatollah Sistani said looking after coronavirus patients is a Wajib Kafai, Furat News reported.

Wajib kifai means an obligation which is upon the entire community but if one person fulfills it, then the obligation is lifted from others.

Ayatollah Sistani added that all related officials ought to provide medical staff with necessary equipment and needs to protect them against the disease.

No negligence in this regard is acceptable, he said.

The senior cleric went on to say that doctors and nurses who die attending to the coronavirus patients, should be deemed martyrs.

Classified a pandemic by the World Health Organization, the new virus, a respiratory disease known as COVID-19, emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in Hubei Province late last year.

It has killed more than 7,000 people globally, and infected nearly 180,000 others, according to the WHO.

So far 133 coronavirus cases and ten deaths have been reported in Iraq.