Health

Kurdistan Region holds conference on COVID-19 vaccination strategy

The two-day-long forum aims to provide a situational analysis of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Kurdistan Region and Iraq as well as highlight the vaccination strategy.

Halgurd Sherwani 2021/01/28 11:23

Attendees listen to KRG Health Minister Saman Barzanji's speech at the health conference in Erbil, Jan. 28, 2021. (Photo: Twitter/Kurdistan Parliament)

Kurdistan Baghdad-Erbil COVID-19 Health Summit KHS Krg Pre-KHS

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – A conference on the COVID-19 vaccination strategy was launched in the Kurdistan Region’s Erbil on Wednesday, in which the challenges of immunization in Iraq and the autonomous Kurdish region are discussed.

The session, dubbed the “Pre-Kurdistan Health Summit” (Pre-KHS), is an annual gathering which is being held before the main conference—the Kurdistan Health Summit—which will address the most pressing health issues in the country.

The Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) Health Minister and Speaker of Parliament, as well as various medical authorities and business leaders in the Kurdish capital, attended the conference.

The two-day-long forum aims to provide a situational analysis of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Kurdistan Region and Iraq as well as highlight the vaccination strategy, with the country expected to receive its first doses in early March 2021, according to health authorities.

Over 100 physicians, health professionals, and policy and decision-makers from the Iraqi government and the KRG attended the conference to discuss the various topics related to the pandemic, including, “Vaccine Procurement & Allocation, Vaccine Supply Chain, Defining Priority Groups for Vaccination,” according to the conference’s agenda.

Prime Minister Masrour Barzani has authorized the health ministry, both financially and technically, to reach a deal with vaccine manufacturers, Saman Barzinji, the KRG’s Health Minister, told Kurdistan 24 during the conference.

“Doses of the vaccine are expected to arrive in late February,” Barzinji added.

In late December, the Iraqi government announced it had signed a deal with American pharmaceutical giant Pfizer to secure 1.5 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.

The Kurdistan Region’s share is included in the doses that Iraq has ordered, the Kurdish health authorities previously announced.

The autonomous Kurdistan Region has so far seen 105,000 infections as well as more than 3,400 deaths since the advent of the pandemic in early March 2020, according to official figures.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany