Erbil to open 12 new vaccination centers as COVID-19 infections skyrocket

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Kurdistan Region’s Erbil province is opening 10 additional centers for coronavirus vaccines as COVID-19 infections continue to spread across the whole of the autonomous region.

The centers will be fully operational starting on Wednesday, Hardi Salah, the deputy director of Rizgari Hospital, told Kurdistan 24.

The decision to open up new centers comes as the Kurdistan Region is experiencing a worryingly high infection rate. On Monday the health ministry announced a new record number of infections, recording more than 3,500 cases in just 24 hours.

Five of the 12 new locations will be in Erbil city and the other seven will be dedicated to peripheral districts and subdistricts, according to Salah.

“People from sub-districts will no longer need to rely on the city center for vaccination as new centers are being opened in the outskirts,” he told Kurdistan 24.

Salah added that a new batch of the Chinese Sinopharm and British-Swedish Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines will soon arrive in the Kurdistan Region.

Iraq is set to receive another half-million vaccine doses from the US in the coming weeks.

Erbil has administered more than 60,000 doses, more than any other province in the autonomous region, according to the latest Iraqi health ministry figures.

The Kurdistan Region has recorded more than 217,000 COVID-19 infections since the start of the pandemic, including 4,700 deaths.