Iraq is expected to receive its first shipment of coronavirus vaccines on Monday as it tackles a second wave of infection.
Public anger has been mounting over the delay in securing doses compared with other countries in the region.
Health Ministry spokesman Said Al Badr said on Sunday that an Iraqi aircraft landed in China and was scheduled to return to the country on Monday with a shipment of the Sinopharm vaccine.
Mr Al Badr did not say how many doses would be arriving, but said Iraq agreed with China to supply millions.
To alleviate public anger, the ministry published pictures of the shipment being loaded on to the aircraft in China.
Along with the Sinopharm shot, Iraq also approved the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines.
In December, the country signed an agreement to reserve 1.5 million doses from Pfizer-BioNTech and paid the company $169 million.
The shipment was supposed to arrive this month but have been delayed because of a request from the company for protection from any legal action that might be taken in connection with the doses, a process that needs parliamentary approval, Mr Al Badr said.
Early last year, Iraq joined the Covax initiative for low and middle-income nations to secure enough doses of Covid-19 vaccine for 20 per cent of its population of about 38 million people.
Iraq is facing a second wave of the virus, with new daily case totals of more than 3,000 this week.
A prominent aide to top Iraqi Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani, tested positive for the virus last week. Ahmed Al Safi is in a stable condition after having the infection diagnosed on Tuesday, his office said.
The news caused some concern before the visit of Pope Francis to Iraq from March 5 to 8, during which he plans to meet Mr Al Sistani.
The Vatican ambassador to Baghdad also tested positive after touring Iraqi cities to prepare for the visit and meeting senior officials, including Prime Minister Mustafa Al Kadhimi.
To help contain the spread, authorities reimposed strict measures, including a stay-home order on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.
For the rest of the week, there are restrictions on movement between 8pm and 5am. Schools are suspended until further notice.
The infection rate peaked in late September, when the country registered 5,025 cases in a day.
The highest number of daily deaths was recorded in late June, when 122 people died, ministry figures show.
Iraq's infection rate dropped to about 600 cases a day in early January and less than 10 deaths a day.
On Sunday, the ministry reported 3,248 new cases and 23 deaths, bringing the overall number of confirmed cases to 695,489 and the death toll reached 13,406.
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Attacks on Egypt’s long rooted Copts
Egypt’s Copts belong to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, with Mark the Evangelist credited with founding their church around 300 AD. Orthodox Christians account for the overwhelming majority of Christians in Egypt, with the rest mainly made up of Greek Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans.
The community accounts for some 10 per cent of Egypt’s 100 million people, with the largest concentrations of Christians found in Cairo, Alexandria and the provinces of Minya and Assiut south of Cairo.
Egypt’s Christians have had a somewhat turbulent history in the Muslim majority Arab nation, with the community occasionally suffering outright persecution but generally living in peace with their Muslim compatriots. But radical Muslims who have first emerged in the 1970s have whipped up anti-Christian sentiments, something that has, in turn, led to an upsurge in attacks against their places of worship, church-linked facilities as well as their businesses and homes.
More recently, ISIS has vowed to go after the Christians, claiming responsibility for a series of attacks against churches packed with worshippers starting December 2016.
The discrimination many Christians complain about and the shift towards religious conservatism by many Egyptian Muslims over the last 50 years have forced hundreds of thousands of Christians to migrate, starting new lives in growing communities in places as far afield as Australia, Canada and the United States.
Here is a look at major attacks against Egypt's Coptic Christians in recent years:
November 2: Masked gunmen riding pickup trucks opened fire on three buses carrying pilgrims to the remote desert monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor south of Cairo, killing 7 and wounding about 20. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.
May 26, 2017: Masked militants riding in three all-terrain cars open fire on a bus carrying pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 29 and wounding 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.
April 2017: Twin attacks by suicide bombers hit churches in the coastal city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta. At least 43 people are killed and scores of worshippers injured in the Palm Sunday attack, which narrowly missed a ceremony presided over by Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of Egypt Orthodox Copts, in Alexandria's St. Mark's Cathedral. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.
February 2017: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians flee their homes in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, fearing attacks by ISIS. The group's North Sinai affiliate had killed at least seven Coptic Christians in the restive peninsula in less than a month.
December 2016: A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt's main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo kills 30 people and wounds dozens during Sunday Mass in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. ISIS claimed responsibility.
July 2016: Pope Tawadros II says that since 2013 there were 37 sectarian attacks on Christians in Egypt, nearly one incident a month. A Muslim mob stabs to death a 27-year-old Coptic Christian man, Fam Khalaf, in the central city of Minya over a personal feud.
May 2016: A Muslim mob ransacks and torches seven Christian homes in Minya after rumours spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly mother of the Christian man was stripped naked and dragged through a street by the mob.
New Year's Eve 2011: A bomb explodes in a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria as worshippers leave after a midnight mass, killing more than 20 people.
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● Started: 2024
● Founders: Akshay Dosaj and Asif Rashid
● Based: Dubai, UAE
● Industry: M&A
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ELIO
Starring: Yonas Kibreab, Zoe Saldana, Brad Garrett
Directors: Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Adrian Molina
Rating: 4/5
GREATEST ROYAL RUMBLE CARD
The line-up as it stands for the Greatest Royal Rumble in Saudi Arabia on April 27
50-man Royal Rumble
Universal Championship
Brock Lesnar (champion) v Roman Reigns
Casket match
The Undertaker v Rusev
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Seth Rollins (champion) v The Miz v Finn Balor v Samoa Joe
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Sheamus and Cesaro v Bray Wyatt and Matt Hardy
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Singles match
Triple H v John Cena
To be confirmed
AJ Styles will defend his WWE World Heavyweight title and Cedric Alexander his Cruiserweight Championship, but matches have yet to be announced
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The specs
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The Breadwinner
Director: Nora Twomey
Starring: Saara Chaudry, Soma Chhaya, Laara Sadiq
Three stars
