Summary
As of 5 February 2022, the total number of COVID-19 vaccines delivered to Syria through the COVAX Facility is 8 352 740, in addition to 2 713 640 doses received through bilateral agreements. These allocations are enough to cover 38% of the population. In the near future, over 3.7 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines are expected to be delivered through COVAX and will be sufficient to cover an additional 18.2% of the population.
In January 2021, the Ministry of Health received 151 200 doses of AstraZeneca/AZD1222 through COVAX donated by Japan, 1 million doses of Sinopharm donated by China, 368 640 doses of AstraZeneca by Oman, 302 400 doses of Johnson & Johnson donated by Spain, and 3 156 000 doses of Johnson & Johnson donated by Italy.
The last shipment received in northwest Syria was 832 800 doses of Johnson & Johnson donated by Italy on 23 December 2021.
The vaccines will be administered as part of the ongoing national vaccination campaign across the country.
Vaccination process
Vaccination activities continue across Syria at both 962 fixed health facilities and through 391 mobile medical teams in rural areas.
The Ministry of Health continues to exert efforts to make the vaccines available not only in designated health centres, but also in places where people visit the most. WHO supported mobile teams are offering vaccination services at shopping centres, mosques, churches, ministries, and lately at the Syrian parliament. In addition, mobile clinics have been stationed at the Directorate of Immigration throughout the country to ease access to vaccination services. These significant efforts have been implemented hand-in-hand with regular vaccination campaigns at health centres all over Syria.
In northeast Syria mobile teams were deployed starting from the second week of January 2022 to provide COVID-19 vaccination services, in addition to the 23 fixed teams in Al Hassakeh governorate. The vaccination process in Ar-Raqqa is ongoing through 2 fixed centres in Al-Raqqa city (Seif Al-Dawla), and Al-Tabaqa city (National Hospital). In eastern Deir-ez-Zor the vaccination campaign resumed through 14 mobile teams as of 17 January 2022 after being suspended for around 10 days pending the arrival of the new COVID-19 vaccine shipment.
Priority groups
As per the National Deployment and Vaccination Plan, the vaccination priority groups include all adults over 18 years of age with special emphasis on health care workers, the elderly, and people with co-morbidities.
According to the updated plan submitted on 2 February 2022, new targets have been set to cover 20% of the population by the end of the first quarter, 40% by the end of the second quarter and 70% by the end of 2022.
Challenges
The late arrival of vaccines makes it difficult for timely implementation of vaccination putting pressure on an already fragile health system. Overall vaccine hesitancy and lack of diversity of vaccine types delivered through COVAX along with the short expiry dates of some vaccine shipments create another challenge in achieving high vaccination rates. Vaccine uptake increased over the last quarter of 2021 due to intensified risk communication and community engagement efforts of the health authorities and partners.
