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Kurdistan
A doctor prepares to administer the COVID-19 vaccine to a patient in Erbil on August 2, 2021. Photo: Bilind T. Abdullah / Rudaw
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Kurdistan Region is seeing an increase in the rate of people coming forward for their coronavirus vaccinations, the health minister said on Tuesday as the spread of the new variant of the virus strikes fear across countries.
Vaccines have seen an increased demand from people for over a month due to the introduction of tougher health measures in late October, Saman Barzinji said at a press conference where he presented statistics showing that 22 percent of people in the Region above 18 years of age are fully vaccinated.
This an increase of one percent since last week. Only 17 percent of teenagers who are above the age of 12 have received both jabs of the vaccine, Barzinji said.
In attempts to raise the vaccination rate in the Region, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) said all teachers and students over 18 must be vaccinated by December 1. All government employees must be vaccinated by January 1, 2022.
It rolled out mobile COVID-19 vaccine clinics in early November, aiming to vaccinate university students and educational staff who have so far been reluctant to come forward for their vaccination.
There are currently 45 mobile vaccine teams and 180 vaccination centers across the Kurdistan Region, according to Barzinji.
A third wave of the coronavirus hit the Kurdistan Region and Iraq between June and July, seeing record-high numbers of daily infections. The surge contributed to an increased demand for vaccines, but the decline in the rate of infections and misleading information has discouraged some people from getting vaccinated.
The Kurdistan Region began administering a third dose of the coronavirus earlier this month. It also started the process of vaccinating teenagers in early November.
The Region has so far provided over two million doses of vaccine, the minister noted.
At the beginning of December, Iraq received almost three million extra doses of the Pfizer vaccine through the COVAX vaccine scheme, bringing the total number of vaccines received in the country through the programme to over six million.
Coronavirus infections in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region soared over the summer during a surge in the Delta variant. Both areas registered high numbers of infections and deaths.
However, although the new Omicron variant is taking over the contagious Delta variant globally, it does not appear to have arrived in Iraq and the Region yet.
More than 90 percent of the cases in Iraq and the Region are Delta, World Health Organization (WHO) Representative in Iraq Ahmed Zouiten told Rudaw’s Payam Sarbast at the presser.
To date, Iraq has recorded 2,088,359 cases and 23,994 deaths since the start of the pandemic, including the Kurdistan Region.
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