COVID-19: Plans for new vaccination card as Kurdistan Region reaches 4,500 total deaths

A COVID-19 vaccination center in Kurdistan Region’s capital city of Erbil. (Photo: Kurdistan 24)
A COVID-19 vaccination center in Kurdistan Region’s capital city of Erbil. (Photo: Kurdistan 24)

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – As the autonomous Kurdistan Region reached the milestone of 4,500 total deaths among coronavirus patients on Sunday, officials announced that members of the public who have completed being fully vaccinated for the highly contagious disease will soon be issued an identification card that will allow them to travel without many current health restrictions, including quarantine and continued testing.

The health pass is intended to prove that a traveler who wishes to leave Iraq and its Kurdish region a proof that he or she is fully immune against the coronavirus pandemic, which halted much of the commercial air traffics as measures globally enacted to stem the highly contagious pathogen.

The cards "will be ready soon and will be issued to vaccinated citizens," a Health Ministry Spokesperson told Kurdistan 24, adding that the cards will have a QR code that airport authorities can scan to validate their authenticity.

More than 50,000 people have received two doses of one of the three available vaccine brands in the Kurdistan Region – Oxford AstraZeneca, Pfizer-BioNTech, and Sinopharm – since the launch of the regional vaccination drive in early March 2021.

Statistically, only five percent of the population has so far received the first dose of the vaccines, although Kurdish health authorities aim to have at least 20 percent fully vaccinated by the end of the year.

Infections across Iraq reached all-time highs in April but steadily declined throughout May. In late June, cases appeared to be increasing again, with authorities recording over 6,000 new cases over just three days.

Read More: COVID-19: Iraq announces third, 'more deadly' wave of pandemic

Editing by John J. Catherine