Iraq Receives 50,000 Sinopharm COVID-19 Vaccines From China

Iraqi medics arrive in Baghdad. (File photo: AFP)
Iraqi medics arrive in Baghdad. (File photo: AFP)
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Iraq Receives 50,000 Sinopharm COVID-19 Vaccines From China

Iraqi medics arrive in Baghdad. (File photo: AFP)
Iraqi medics arrive in Baghdad. (File photo: AFP)

Iraq on Tuesday received 50,000 Sinopharm vaccines donated by China, the health ministry announced, launching a long-awaited vaccination campaign.

Health ministry spokesman Seif al-Badr told reporters that the first delivery in the early hours meant inoculations could begin.

"The doses will be delivered to Baghdad's three main hospitals, and maybe to some provinces," said Badr, who confirmed the jabs were donations.

"We will start vaccinations today, Tuesday," he said, AFP reported.

The health ministry simultaneously announced it had agreed with the Chinese ambassador in Baghdad to purchase another two million doses, with no details on payment or timing.

Sinopharm affiliate Wuhan Institute Of Biological Products says its vaccine has an efficacy rate of 72.51 percent, behind rival jabs by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, which have 95 percent and 94.5 percent rates respectively.

Hours earlier, on Monday afternoon, the health ministry launched an online platform for citizens to register for vaccinations, but it had not said the campaign would begin the next day and the page was not functional on Tuesday.

It has said health workers, security forces and the elderly would be prioritized and that the vaccine would be administered free of charge, but has given few other details.

The first jabs arrived as the Iraqi government faces growing criticism of its handling of the pandemic.

The country has been hit by a second wave of Covid-19 infections, with more than 3,000 new cases reported daily, a few months after they had dropped to around 700 a day, and deaths also tripling to around 25 a day in recent weeks.

To stop the spread, Iraq has imposed overnight curfews during weekdays and full lockdowns on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, with obligatory mask-wearing in public.

But there is little commitment by either the public or security forces deployed to enforce the measures, in a country whose health sector has been ravaged by decades of war, corruption and slim investment.

Some Iraqi officials have already been vaccinated.

Two current and one former Iraqi official told AFP in January they had already received doses of "the Chinese vaccine".

They said 1,000 vaccine doses had been gifted to a senior Iraqi politician through contacts in China and had been distributed to top politicians and government officials.



Italy Says Suspending EU Sanctions on Syria Could Help Encourage Transition

In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syria's de facto leader Ahmad al-Sharaa, right, meets with Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani in Damascus, Syria, Friday, Jan. 10, 2025. (SANA via AP)
In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syria's de facto leader Ahmad al-Sharaa, right, meets with Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani in Damascus, Syria, Friday, Jan. 10, 2025. (SANA via AP)
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Italy Says Suspending EU Sanctions on Syria Could Help Encourage Transition

In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syria's de facto leader Ahmad al-Sharaa, right, meets with Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani in Damascus, Syria, Friday, Jan. 10, 2025. (SANA via AP)
In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syria's de facto leader Ahmad al-Sharaa, right, meets with Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani in Damascus, Syria, Friday, Jan. 10, 2025. (SANA via AP)

Italy's foreign minister says a moratorium on European Union sanctions on Syria could help encourage the country's transition after the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad by opposition groups.

Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani visited Syria on Friday and expressed Italy’s keen interest in helping Syria recover from civil war, rebuild its broken economy and help stabilize the region.

Tajani, who met with Syria’s new de facto leaders, including Ahmed al-Sharaa, said a stable Syria and Lebanon was of strategic and commercial importance to Europe.

He said the fall of Assad's government, as well as the Lebanon parliament's vote on Thursday to elect army commander Joseph Aoun as president, were signs of optimism for Middle East stability.

He said Italy wanted to play a leading role in Syria’s recovery and serve as a bridge between Damascus and the EU, particularly given Italy’s commercial and strategic interests in the Mediterranean.

“The Mediterranean can no longer just be a sea of death, a cemetery of migrants but a sea of commerce a sea of development,” he said.

Tajani later traveled to Lebanon and met with Aoun. Italy has long played a sizeable role in the UN peacekeeping force for Lebanon, UNIFIL.

On the eve of his visit, Tajani presided over a meeting in Rome with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and officials from Britain, France and Germany as well as the EU foreign policy chief. He said that meeting of the so-called Quintet on Syria was key to begin the discussion about a change to the EU sanctions.

“The sanctions were against the Assad regime. If the situation has changed, we have to change our choices,” Tajani said.