“After having received testing, the results show I am infected with coronavirus. Therefore, I have to distance myself and avoid interaction until I pass through it,” tweeted Talabani.
“I wish safety and good health upon everyone. Please continue protecting yourselves,” he added.
The top official is the latest high profile politician in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to be infected with the virus.
Erbil’s 42-year-old governor Firsat Sofi tragically died of coronavirus in November, rattling many in the autonomous territory.
The Region has recorded 104,402 cases, including 79,970 recoveries and 3,424 deaths, since the coronavirus outbreak began, according to Sunday’s figures from the KRG health ministry.
An Iraqi health ministry spokesperson told Rudaw English on Monday that Iraq will begin receiving the initial 1.5 million doses of the American Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine in February, weeks earlier than previously announced.
The vaccine will be distributed in all Iraqi provinces according to the percentage of the population, said spokesperson Saif Badr on Monday.
Aso Hawezy, a spokesperson for the KRG health ministry, told Rudaw on Saturday that insufficient information on when residents of the Kurdistan Region would be receiving the vaccine has led them to pursue additional avenues in securing immunization.
"We have contacted Pfizer in order to provide the people in the Kurdistan Region with vaccines, because it is unknown when exactly Iraq is going to provide the vaccine," he said.
