COVID-19: Iraq records over 3,500 new cases, 52 deaths as Pfizer announces promising vaccine trial data

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Iraq’s Ministry of Health and Environment on Tuesday announced 3,577 new coronavirus cases and 52 deaths among patients who had contracted the virus.

The ministry said in a statement that it had completed 18,761 tests in the previous 24 hours, making for a total of 3,38,467 tests given since the beginning of the outbreak in Iraq.

Regarding the ministry's position regarding recent headlines that the US pharmaceutical company Pfizer had promising initial results in its efforts to develop a coronavirus vaccine, the statement added, “The announced results are preliminary and have been published by the producing company.”

Ministry spokesman Saif Al-Badr said, "The World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Vaccine Alliance have not approved any vaccine, so far." 

On Monday, the WHO characterized the results of the Pfizer vaccine trials as "very positive" and stated that it could potentially change the seriousness of the virus' epidemiological status by March 2021. The organization also said that it needs an additional $4.5 billion to prepare the vaccine in that timeline.

Al-Badr indicated that when "any country or company succeeds in adopting a scientific vaccine according to internationally approved standards, Iraq will be one of the first countries to import and use it."

Many pharmaceutical companies are racing against time and each other to complete clinical trials for an effective vaccine and then be the first to obtain production and distribution approval. 

According to the health ministry’s latest figures, the total number of infections in Iraq have reached 505,310, with over 11,400 having died.

Today's infection and fatality figures reported by the Iraqi federal government in Baghdad do not include the most recent developments in the autonomous Kurdistan Region, which has its own health ministry and typically announces results later in the day. As such, Kurdistan's figures are usually added to the following day's national tally.

Read More: COVID-19: Kurdistan Region’s total deaths top 2,700

The coronavirus has infected more than 51 million people worldwide and killed over 1.26 million, according to Johns Hopkins University’s database. The actual figures could be dramatically higher due to insufficient testing capabilities or underreporting. 

Editing by John J. Catherine