KRG extends Pfizer-BioNTech doses interval to eight weeks: official

Halgurd Sherwani 2021/09/01 13:38

A vial of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is seen at al-Salam hospital in Mosul, July 29, 2021. (Photo: Zaid Al-Obeidi/AFP)

Kurdistan Pfizer-BioNTech Krg Kurdistan Region

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The gap between administering the first and second doses of the American-German COVID-19 vaccine is extended to more than 50 days, the Kurdistan Region’s health authorities announced on Tuesday.

According to the American public health body, known as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the minimum interval between administering the two doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines is 21 days and maximum is 42 days.

According to the changed protocol, Kurdish vaccine recipients, from September 1 onward, will have to wait for eight weeks (56 days) before receiving the second dose of Pfizer, according to an updated policy of the regional health ministry announced on Tuesday.

The decision was made based on renewed recommendations from the Iraqi board of vaccination, which itself relies on global health agencies such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the CDC for any health policy formulation, Aso Hawezy, the regional ministry’s spokesperson told Kurdistan 24 on Wednesday.

The interval extension decided upon on "scienfitic bases", Hawezy added.

Previously, both Iraq’s federal and regional health ministries used to administer both doses within 21 days.

The new policy will be applied on the new vaccine recipients, according to the ministry. Those who had already received a dose will get their second jabs within the 21-days period, the ministry added.

Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines are the most widely administered jabs across the Kurdish region of Iraq.

So far, health authorities have administered 308,860 doses of the American-German Pfizer-BioNTech, while there have been 162,266 jabs of the UK-Swedish AstraZeneca and 109,930 of the Chinese Sinopharm, according to a graphic from the KRG released recently.

According to official government numbers, over 293,000 individuals in the Kurdistan Region have contracted the highly contagious disease with over 5,300 of them having died from coronavirus-related complications.