All hospitals in Maldives to start Covid-19 vaccination tomorrow!

Vaccine
Maldives began Covid-19 vaccination program on February 1st with Covishield | Photo: President's Office

Male’, Maldives — The Health Emergency Operations Centre (HEOC) has informed that all the hospitals in Maldives will start administering the Covid-19 vaccine tomorrow.

While the official inoculation program began yesterday, the spokesperson of HEOC, Dr. Nazla Rafeeg stated that the aim of this program is to administer the Covid-19 vaccine to all the health and social workers in Maldives within a 10 days amount.

Currently, vaccine administration is being carried out in Hulhumale’ Hospital, Villimale’ Hospital, ADK Hospital and at Tree Top Hospital in the capital Male’ City. Along with this, vaccination is also being carried out in Addu Equatorial Hospital (AEH) in the southern region and Kulhdhuffushi Regional Hospital in the Nothern region of the Maldives.

Vaccination will begin in all hospitals tomorrow and all Health Centers will carry out the administration on the coming days.

Dr. Nazla Rafeeg stated.

Dr. Nazla shared concern that she fears that the surge in the number of confirmed daily cases may appear as an obstacle to the inoculation program. Reasoning that with the increasing number of cases, the health facilities will become more crowded and health workers will be more occupied in providing care for the patients.

Dr. Nazla informed that the vaccination will continue as mentioned as earlier, with the health workers and front liners are given priority, followed by individuals above the age of 50 and high risk patients.

The Minister of Health of Maldives, Ahmed Naseem recently revealed that the vaccine shipment to be received through World Health Organization (WHO), will arrive by 14th or 15th of February.

Maldives has currently received 100,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca, Covishield, gifted from India. Additionally, Maldives is set to receive vaccines enough to vaccinate 20 percent of the population of the country, through the WHO endorsed Covax facility mid February. The government has signed an agreement to purchase an additional 700,000 doses, with the AstraZeneca pharmaceutical company set to arrive.

The incumbent government has announced that all citizens, along with the expat workers living in Maldives will receive the Covid-19 vaccine at no cost.