Vaccine rollout begins in rebel-held northern Syria
May 2, 2021
Residents of rebel-held parts of northern Syria began receiving coronavirus vaccinations Saturday, an AFP reporter said, with medics among the first to be inoculated.
Authorities in Idlib and northern Aleppo provinces received an initial batch of 53,800 AstraZeneca Covid-19 jabs on April 21, under the Covax programme for poorer nations.
In Idlib city, the first to receive the jab was a doctor at the Ibn Sina children’s hospital, one of the city’s biggest medical facilities.
Yasser Najib, the head of a committee running the vaccine drive, said the first doses would go to medical staff at Ibn Sina and the national hospital in Azaz, in northern Aleppo.