A tick-borne virus has killed at least 32 people in the past few months across Iraq, the Health Ministry said on Wednesday.
Confirmed cases of the Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever have reached 171 since the beginning of this year, ministry spokesman Saif Al Badr said.
Infections have been recorded in 15 of the country's 18 provinces.
The worst-hit is Dhi Qar, about 350 kilometres south of Baghdad, with 66 confirmed cases and 17 deaths, Mr Al Badr said.
It is followed by the nearby Maysan province with 22 confirmed cases and Wasit provinces with 18 others.
The virus has been endemic in Iraq since the 1970s. The country normally records up to 20 cases a year, of which one or two result in death.
Iraqi health authorities have cited the lack of adequate oversight of livestock breeding and slaughter for the unprecedented levels of infections among people.
Since the outbreak, Iraqi authorities have scrambled to combat the disease, launching campaigns to spray animals and raise public awareness on how to reduce the risk of infection.
Late last month, the government allocated 1 billion Iraqi dinars (about $700,000) to combat the disease mainly to purchase pesticides, said the spokesman of Agriculture Ministry Hamid Al Nayef.
Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever was first documented there in 1979 and historically there have been only a handful of cases each year.
The tick-borne virus has a fatality rate of up to 30 per cent. It can also be transmitted among humans as a result of contact with the blood, organs, secretions or other bodily fluids of infected people.
It is endemic to Africa, Asia, the Middle East and the Balkans. No vaccine is available for people or animals.
Meanwhile, coronavirus infections increased slightly in recent days after dropping significantly to about 100 a day in recent months.
On Tuesday, the country registered 344 new cases and one death, taking the total number of confirmed infections to 2,33 million and fatalities to 25,224.
“The problem of coronavirus is not over yet,” Mr Al Badr told state-run TV later on Tuesday. “There are still concerns of seeing new waves of the pandemic or new variants even in Iraq” he added.
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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