New batches of coronavirus vaccine to arrive in Kurdistan Region within days

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Erbil’s health authorities on Saturday announced that additional batches of the coronavirus vaccine would arrive in the Kurdistan Region in the coming days.

It is hoped that a batch of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine will arrive this week, while a new delivery of the American-German Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is expected next week in the Region.

The Pfizer vaccine batch will contain 1,170 doses, Dlovan Mohammad, chief of the Directorate of Health in Erbil, told Kurdistan 24.

"In general, there were 19,500 vaccine doses available in Erbil, and 15,000 doses were used, and the vaccination campaign is still ongoing,” Mohammed added.

He pointed out that there are many requests from people seeking the Pfizer vaccine, and doses have run out in Erbil city center, with little left in the town of Soran.

VIDEO: Kurdistan Region rolls out COVID-19 vaccination program

The Kurdistan Region’s Ministry of Health announced 645 new infections and 12 deaths due to the virus in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of cases to 138,222, including 3,869 deaths.

The coronavirus has infected more than 140 million people worldwide and killed over 3 million as of Saturday, according to Johns Hopkins University. The actual figures could be dramatically higher due to insufficient testing capabilities or underreporting.

Editing by Joanne Stocker-Kelly