Malé, Maldives – Health Emergency Operation Center (HEOC) has revealed that the Maldivian government will be purchasing 300,000 doses of the Covishield vaccine from Serum Institute of India.
In a press conference held on Sunday night, the Spokesperson of HEOC, Dr. Nazla Rafeeq stated that the agreement for this transaction has already been signed, which would mean that the amount of Covishield vaccines received by Maldives via donations and procurement would reach 512,000, including the 200,000 as donations from India, and the 12,000 received by the COVAX facility.
In order to facilitate the procurement of vaccines, the Finance Ministry of Maldives has published a decree, declaring that several clauses of the Public Finance Act would not be applicable in procuring the vaccines.
Apart from the 300,000 doses to be purchased from the Serum Institute of India, Maldives has also signed an agreement with AstraZeneca, to purchase 700,000 doses of the vaccine.
The Covishield vaccine is essentially the same as the AstraZeneca vaccine, with the only difference being that the Covishield vaccine is the AstraZeneca vaccine mass produced by the Serum Institute of India and marketed as Covishield.
As of now, Maldives has vaccinated over 200,000 individuals in the country – all of whom having have received the first dose of the vaccine.
