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Ammon News - According to Mohammad Hawari, spokesman of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, during the first phase, shots will be administered to 1,200 healthcare workers who provide aid to residents of the Zaatari camp as well as to the elderly with chronic diseases.

A campaign of vaccination of Syrian refugees against the coronavirus at the Zaatari camp has begun in Jordan, Mohammad Hawari, spokesman of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Jordan told the Daily Star newspaper on Monday.

According to him, during the first phase, shots will be administered to 1,200 healthcare workers who provide aid to residents of the camp as well as to the elderly with chronic diseases. About 80,000 refugees reside in the camp, while the total of 663,000 Syrians arrived in Jordan after the beginning of the Syrian conflict in 2011.

Inoculation of local residents began in Jordan on January 13, to date, over 50,000 people have been vaccinated. Earlier, batches of a Chinese vaccine by Sinopharm as well as of a vaccine by American Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech have been delivered to Jordan from the United Arab Emirates. In all, the government plans to inoculate approximately 20% of Jordanians in 2021.

Jordanian Health Minister Natheer Obeidat told the parliament on Monday that the government is slowing down the process of relaunching sectors of the economy which started in mid-January. According to him, "it is not logical to relax the quarantine" given the continued increase in the number of infections.

According to the Health Ministry, over the past 24 hours, 2,312 residents have been infected, 18 died of the coronavirus. The majority of infections were detected in the capital city of Amman and its environs (1,612), followed by the provinces of Al Balqa (206) and Irbid (144). Over the past 24 hours, 29,225 residents have been PCR-tested with the positive result detected in 7.9%.

According to the latest statistics, the total number of infections in the kingdom has reached 349,562 since March 10, 2020, with 4,473 fatalities and 328,231 recoveries.

*TASS