Without enough Covid vaccines, it’s hard to see an end to the pandemic in Iraq

Baghdad is the epicentre of a second wave, says Omar Ebeid. With hospitals struggling to cope, more needs to be done to get jabs into arms

Iraq has received just 50,000 doses of the vaccine so far (Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

I saw something new in Baghdad recently. At one of the city’s many checkpoints, men in white coats and N95 masks were standing in front of the soldiers, checking whether passengers in minivans were wearing their masks. The cigarette vendors that wind their way through the waiting cars had added a sideline in selling surgical masks.

Apart from that, however, it is difficult to see the effect Covid-19 has had on the city. The pain I witness every day at the hospital we at Doctors Without Borders (MSF) are running is hidden from most of the people who crowd the streets. But that suffering has now redoubled as Iraq is in the grip of a savage second wave, with Baghdad again its epicentre.

Since the end of September we have admitted around 350 critical and severe patients, but 120 of those have been in the last month alone. To cope with the influx we have expanded from 36 beds to 51, but the mortality rate remains frightening. On a single day recently, despite the best efforts of our team, seven patients died.