ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Iraq will soon receive millions more doses of COVID-19 vaccines, a World Health Organization (WHO) official told Iraqi state media on Thursday.
“Millions of doses will reach Iraq in the coming days,” WHO’s Iraq representative Ahmed Zouiten told the Iraqi News Agency (INA), adding that the country is seeing a “sharp increase” in COVID-19 cases.
The country saw its highest ever number of cases recorded on Wednesday, with 8,331 cases recorded in 24 hours.
The health ministry said the new record is a “serious development.”
“We have warned about this several times,” ministry spokesperson Saif al-Badr said in a televised statement.
Iraq in February announced night curfew on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from 8:00 PM to 6:00 AM, after the number of cases dramatically surged.
Iraq received 336,000 doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine late in March.
It previously received 50,000 doses of the Chinese-made Sinopharm vaccine and is also due to receive Russian-made Sputnik vaccine. Five thousand of the Sinopharm doses were gifted to the Kurdistan Region from China, with priority given to health workers on the frontlines of the fight against the virus.
The health ministry has also signed a deal with Pfizer for 1.5 million doses of its vaccine.
