Iraqi president receives injection of COVID-19 vaccine

2021-04-27 16:05:36 GMT2021-04-28 00:05:36(Beijing Time) Xinhua English

BAGHDAD, April 27 (Xinhua) -- Iraqi President Barham Salih has received an injection of the COVID-19 vaccine, according to a statement by the presidency's media office, as the Ministry of Health reported 7,152 new cases in the country on Tuesday.

The statement said Salih received his vaccine on Monday night at a medical center, where he called for the need to continue medical efforts to prevent the pandemic.

"Our people can overcome this ordeal, and crown the efforts of health cadres with success by adhering to health protective measures to protect the society," Salih noted.

Riyadh Abdul-Amir, head of the ministry's Public Health Department, denied in a press release the rumors about discovering the mutant strain found in India with an Iraqi citizen who had returned from India in the southern province of Dhi Qar.

"This is not true, as not everyone who comes from India is infected with the new strain," Abdul-Amir said.

"The other thing, it has not been proven yet that this strain is more dangerous than others," he added.

Meanwhile, Iraqi Airways said in a statement that it has "cancelled all its direct flights to India starting Tuesday until further notice."

So far, with the 7,152 new COVID-19 cases reported by the health ministry during the past 24 hours, the total number of infections in Iraq has reached 1,045,010.

It also reported 45 new deaths, raising the death toll from the infectious virus to 15,348, while the total recoveries in Iraq climbed by 7,312 to 920,523.

A total of 9,198,959 tests have been carried out in Iraq since the outbreak of the disease in February 2020, with 43,230 done during the day.

The ministry said 10,112 people were vaccinated against the COVID-19 during the past 24 hours across Iraq, bringing the total number of doses received to 322,828.

Iraq has taken a series of measures to curb the recent rise in infections. The Iraqi National Board for Selection of Drugs has approved the emergency use of China's Sinopharm vaccines, in addition to AstraZeneca, Pfizer-BioNTech, and Sputnik V vaccines.

Since the early stage of the pandemic in 2020, the Chinese government has sent medical aid to Iraq and donated two shipments of Sinopharm vaccines to the country to help combat the pandemic. Enditem

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