Qatar to Launch Global Refugee Vaccination Project

Date: 12 April 2021 - 21:30

News ID: ۸۹۰۸۳

DOHA (Dispatches) – The Qatar Red Crescent has announced it will launch a $100m humanitarian initiative to provide COVID-19 vaccines to refugees, displaced persons and migrants around the world.
The campaign will run for three years and aims to cover 20 countries across Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
The Qatar Red Crescent will implement the initiative in cooperation with the World Health Organization.
"Implementation will be carried out through the World Health Organization, according to the procedures adopted in each country, in coordination with the concerned authorities,” Qatar Red Crescent said in a statement.
The objectives of the initiative include inoculation of "3,650,000 of the most vulnerable people in refugee, internally displaced and migrant communities” against COVID-19, as well as promotion and encouragement of the vaccination.
Target groups will also include the elderly, those with chronic diseases and humanitarian workers.
The project intends to provide the highest number of vaccines for displaced people and refugees in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, northern Syria, the occupied Palestinian territories and Yemen – with 400,000 inoculations planned in each country.
Lebanon, which has the highest per capita concentration of refugees in the world, is also included in the campaign, and is expected to receive inoculations for 150,000 people.
Meanwhile, Iraq on Sunday received the second batch of Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccines donated by the Chinese government to help the country combat the pandemic.
On March 2, Iraq received the first batch of COVID-19 vaccines donated by the Chinese government to help combat the pandemic.
During the early stage of the pandemic in 2020, China sent several batches of medical aid to Iraq and a team of seven medical experts who spent 50 days in Iraq from March 7 to April 26 to help contain the disease, during which they helped build a PCR lab and install an advanced CT scanner in the capital Baghdad.