DUBAI: The Ministry of Health in Iraq’s Kurdistan region called on citizens to speed up registration to get vaccinated against COVID-19 to control the spread of the coronavirus as the self-ruled territory faces a third wave of infections.
“The increasing number of infections in the region and the increase in critical cases indicate that the coronavirus is present and has not ended as some believe,” Dr. Aso Hawizi, a spokesman for the region’s health ministry, told the Iraqi News Agency on Thursday.
The spokesperson said the ministry called on all citizens to adhere to instructions and speed up registrations for the vaccine. He said that these are “the two most important options to partially control the situation.”
More doses of vaccines are expected to arrive from the Federal Ministry of Health, he added.
So far, the Kurdish authority has administered 160,000 doses of vaccines against COVID-19.
The Regional Council of Ministers agreed to adopt vaccine cards and will start distributing to citizens for those who received two doses of the vaccine, the ministry said.
Kurdish health minister Saman Al-Barzanji briefed the regional parliament on Thursday on the latest developments in the situation regarding the spread of the virus and discussed the general health situation.
He later said in a press conference that “the number of infected people is increasing again in the region and the risk rate rises from yellow to orange,” meaning from average to above average.
The Iraqi Ministry of Health recorded 7,554 new cases of coronavirus nationwide, including 729 cases in the Kurdistan region.
