Over 600,000 in Kurdistan Region fully vaccinated against COVID-19

A Kurdistan Region health care worker administers the COVID-19 vaccine at an inoculation center in Erbil, Aug. 7, 2021. (Photo: Safin Hamed/AFP)
A Kurdistan Region health care worker administers the COVID-19 vaccine at an inoculation center in Erbil, Aug. 7, 2021. (Photo: Safin Hamed/AFP)

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The autonomous Kurdistan Region announced on Thursday that its health workers had so far fully vaccinated well over a half million of its citizens, according to the latest official figures.

Since beginning its vaccination drive in early 2021, the regional Ministry of Health has administered 613,900 second vaccine doses, accounting for 33 percent of eligible candidates.

Over 4,300,000 people aged over 12 are also now eligible to receive the inoculation.

More than 908,000 additional people have received just one dose of one of the available vaccine brands, according to government figures which estimated them at around 49 percent.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)’s stated goal is to fully vaccinate 40 percent of those over 12 years old.

So far, 373,699 patients across the four provinces of the Kurdistan Region have contracted the highly contagious disease, with more than 6,800 of them having died.

Despite spiking numbers in recent months, November has seen an overall downward trend in new infections.

Read More: COVID-19: Daily infection numbers down across Kurdistan Region

On Nov. 10, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) announced that it had allocated significant additional funds to support efforts to combat the coronavirus across the autonomous region of Iraq.

Read More: Kurdistan Region earmarks additional funds to contain COVID-19

A government statement explained that Prime Minister Masrour Barzani had "agreed to allocate additional funds to the health sector, based on the public interest, and in order to preserve the lives of the citizens of the Kurdistan Region."