BAGHDAD (AFP) – In the stores and buses of Iraq masks are rare even as Covid-19 spreads widely, vaccines are viewed with suspicion and the sick see hospitals as a last resort.
At al-Shifaa Hospital in the capital Baghdad, the ramifications are clear.
“More than 95 percent of those sick with Covid-19 in intensive care are unvaccinated,” said Ali Abdel Hussein Kazem, assistant director of the facility.
Half of the 40 intensive care beds are occupied in the department, where irregular beeping from monitors and IV machines is constantly heard.
Al-Shifaa hospital has been turned into a Covid treatment center since the start of the pandemic and can treat 175 patients.
Linked to breathing devices, an old man and a young woman share a large room, where a family member is allowed to monitor them -- masked and in a white protective outfit.
Next door, a man in his 60s fidgets, pushing away his blanket. An asthmatic, he is also hooked up to a ventilator.
Since January, Iraq’s 40 million people have been confronted with a fourth coronavirus wave but -- unlike other countries -- the government has not imposed any restrictions.
Iraq has recorded more than 2.2 million infections and 24,000 deaths since the pandemic began two years ago, but data released by the authorities indicates that infections are now declining to around 2,000 new cases per day.
Despite 1,400 vaccination centers, officials struggle to overcome skepticism about the jabs, which health experts around the world say are saving lives.
Fewer than 10 million people in Iraq, about a quarter of the population, have been vaccinated, said health ministry spokesman Seif al-Badr.
Among them, not even seven million have received two doses, and those with a booster number less than 100,000.
In neighboring Iran, 66 percent of the 83-million population have received two doses.