Last update. April 20th, 2021.
“There is a tendency to grant a special passport to vaccinated people wishing to travel to any other country,” said the Iraqi Health Minister Hassan Al-Tamini to the Iraqi News Agency on April 18th, 2021.
According to Al-Tamini, the government of Iraq is currently analyzing and considering all the information to learn if and how an Iraqi COVID passport could be issued.
The ministry will “rely on the electronic platform for people who are registered in it,” referring to the database where Iraqi citizens indicate if they are being vaccinated against COVID-19, which provides “accurate information about the citizens who will obtain a special card.”
Al-Halfi: Iraqi vaccine card is not a COVID passport
After the Health Minister of Iraq revealed the possibility of having a COVID certificate to travel, local media and citizens raised doubts regarding the nature of such a document.
Is the vaccine card the same as the COVID passport? Can vaccinated Iraqi nationals travel with just their vaccine card?
Riyad Abdul Amir Al-Halfi, Director of Public Health, clarified on April 19th that “the current card is not for travel, but rather for determining the second date for the vaccine.”
Vaccination rate in Iraq
Currently, the country has received shipments of the Sinopharm, Pfizer-BioNTech, and AstraZeneca jabs, while the government has established that key groups of the Iraqi population must be vaccinated.
The compulsory vaccination is meant for medical staff, government officers, and workers from restaurants, shopping centers, and factories that are under the Iraqi government supervision.
More than 200,000 people have received at least a COVID vaccine dose, according to information provided by the Iraqi Health Ministry.