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 Instead, a U.N.-backed vaccination campaign has met with suspicion
and mistrust by an exhausted population who feel betrayed by their
government and abandoned by the international community after a
decade of conflict that ruined their lives.
"It's all a lie, even if the dose is for free I wouldn't take it,"
said Jassem al-Ali, who fled his home in the south of Idlib province
and now lives in Teh camp, one of many in a region controlled by
opponents of the Damascus government.
Youssef Ramadan, another camp resident who lived under bombardment
for years, echoed the doubts. "Will we be like sheep who trust the
herder until they are slaughtered?" he asked.
A consignment of 54,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine arrived in
Idlib at the end of April, the first batch for opposition-held
Syrian territory, delivered through the global vaccine-sharing
platform COVAX. Inoculations started on May 1.
"There is a large amount of hesitancy and what made it worse is
everything in the media continuously about AstraZeneca and blood
clots," Yasser Naguib, a doctor who heads a local vaccine team
working in opposition-held areas, told Reuters.
Similar concerns about the coronavirus vaccine have slowed the
rollout in Europe and elsewhere amid worries about rare cases of
blood clots associated with the AstraZeneca shot. Most governments
have said benefits far outweigh the risks, although some have
restricted it to certain age groups.
But the challenge in Idlib goes beyond doubts about vaccines. Some
question whether the virus itself is a threat.
"If there really was coronavirus in Idlib you would hear about tens
of thousands of people getting it," said 25-year-old Somar Youssef,
who fled his home in Idlib's rural Maara region.
'ENCOURAGE THE REST'
Naguib said it was challenging to convince people fasting during
Ramadan to take a shot when they can't take oral medication for any
side effects, such as a fever. Eid al-Fitr, marking the end of the
Muslim month, starts this week.
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 "We are optimistic that after
Eid it will be better," he said, adding that a
55-strong team was working to raise awareness
about virus risks and vaccine benefits.
At the same time as doses from COVAX landed in
Idlib, 200,000 shots arrived in Damascus, part
of the World Health Organization campaign to
inoculate about 20% of Syria's population, or 5
million people across the nation, this year.
Officials have not given any indication about
take up in government-held areas, where Damascus
also aims to use vaccines from Russia, the
government's military ally, and China.
In Idlib, Naguib said 6,070 people out of around
40,000 healthcare and humanitarian workers on a
priority list had been vaccinated by May 9. But
even some healthcare workers are wary.
A Reuters witness saw just seven out of 30
medical workers receiving vaccines on the first
day of a campaign at one Idlib medical centre.
Initially, only three had volunteered.
"As a director of the kidney dialysis unit, I
was the first one to get the vaccine and I
wanted to encourage the rest who were scared
because of all the rumours about it," said Taher
Abdelbaki, a doctor at another clinic, the Ibn
Sina medical centre.
By the end of 2021, two more COVAX vaccine
batches are expected to arrive in Idlib to
inoculate about 850,000 people in a region of
about 3.5 million people, a target that leaves
the region's vaccination teams with much work to
do.
 "We will not be their lab rats here in the
north," said Abdelsalam Youssef, a community
leader in Teh camp.
(Reporting by Khalil Ashawi; Writing by Maha El
Dahan; Editing by Edmund Blair)
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