Iraq prepares to receive 1.3 million doses of covid vaccine

Iraq 09:57 AM - 2021-04-18

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The Iraqi Ministry of Health is preparing to receive 1.3 million doses of anti-coronavirus vaccines during the current month, Iraq's Health Minister announced on Sunday.

 

The Minister of Health and Environment, Hassan Al-Tamimi, said in a press interview that the vaccination outlets spread in Baghdad and all governorates witness hundreds of citizens arriving to take doses of the vaccine daily.

 

According to the statistics of the Ministry of Health, the number of vaccinated people in Iraq exceeded 215,000 citizens, after raising awareness of the danger of the virus and limiting its spread.

 

"New batches of vaccines will arrive at the end of this month amounting to one million and 300 thousand doses through the COVAX facility, with the continued supply of the Pfizer and Chinese Sinopharm vaccines weekly, as during the past two days 200,000 doses of Sinopharm vaccine have been distributed to the outlets in Baghdad and all governorates," Al-Tamimi said.

 

In turn, the Director of Iraq's Public Health, Riadh Abdul-Amir Al-Halfi, revealed that the Ministry of Health is seeking to double the contract with Pfizer from 3 million to 6 million doses of its vaccine.

 

He added that the method of preparing the Pfizer vaccine to Iraq is weekly, indicating that "Iraq will receive 25 thousand new doses, and that the quantities that Pfizer sends to Iraq are not specified."

 

Earlier in April, Iraq had received more than 49 thousand doses of the American Pfizer and 200,000 of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccines. It has previously received 336,000 doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine and 50,000 of the Chinese-made Sinopharm and the vaccination campaign was launched through 700 outlets across the country. 

 

Iraq expects to receive 21 million and a half doses of vaccines from Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and Sinopharm this month.

 

So far, Iraq has recorded over 964,000 coronavirus cases with more than 845,000 recoveries and over 15,000 deaths from the virus.

 

 

 

PUKmedia