COVID-19 vaccinations start in Kurdistan Region

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Vaccination against COVID-19 began in the Kurdistan Region on Thursday, with a local health worker the first to be vaccinated against the virus. 

Goran Othman, a health worker at the intensive care unit in Erbil's West Emergency Hospital, was the first person in the Kurdistan Region to receive the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine on Thursday, at the city’s Rizgari hospital.

"It is a special feeling to start the vaccination process in the Kurdistan Region and for me to be the first person to get the vaccine. Hopefully everyone in Kurdistan will get access to the vaccine,” Othman told Rudaw’s Farhad Dolamari.

The Kurdistan Region on Tuesday received 5,000 doses of the Sinopharm coronavirus vaccine as a gift from China. Prime Minister Masrour Barzani said health workers on the frontline of the fight against the virus will be prioritized to receive the jab.

“I am pleased to confirm that we have received an early batch of 5,000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine,” Barzani said in a tweet, describing it as “an important milestone in our fight against COVID-19.”

China has donated 50,000 doses of its vaccine to Iraq, including those given to the Kurdistan Region.

Aso Hawezy, spokesperson for the Kurdistan Regional Government’s health ministry, told Rudaw on Sunday that 1,000 of the 5,000 donated doses will be given to Chinese workers in the Kurdistan Region.

The donation comes as a UK variant of coronavirus rapidly spreads across the Region. The health ministry said on Thursday it had  recorded 202 new cases, 132 recoveries and one death in the past 24 hours, with 109,789 cases, including 104,050 recoveries and 3,526 deaths recorded since the start of the pandemic.