SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Iraq has begun coronavirus vaccination campaign with a small batch of donated doses, state media reported on Tuesday.
The country had reported 699,088 cases of COVID-19 and 13,428 deaths as of Monday. It had also registered 639,639 recoveries.
Iraq launched the vaccination campaign at Baghdad’s Medical City hospital on Tuesday afternoon, after receiving the first doses of a Chinese vaccine.
Iraq received its first 50,000 doses of the Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine donated by China as the country is struggling to cope with a new surge of the disease.
An Iraqi military transport plane carrying the first batch of the vaccines from China landed at Baghdad International Airport late on Monday.
The doses will be offered to health workers, elderly people and members of the security forces first, according to the health ministry.
Iraqi Minister of Health Hassan al-Tamimi said Iraq had an agreement with Sinopharm Group to supply around 2 million doses of the vaccine that would be sent in stages, Reuters reported.
Iraq has also agreements to receive vaccines from AstraZeneca Plc and Pfizer, said Hassan.
Two current and one former Iraqi official told AFP in January they had already received doses of “the Chinese vaccine”.
They said 1,000 vaccine doses had been gifted to a senior Iraqi politician through contacts in China and had been distributed to top politicians and government officials, AFP reported.
