Malé, Maldives – Health Protection Agency (HPA) has announced that the administration of second dose of Covishield will start on Saturday.
HPA advises eligible individuals, those who have received the first dose of Covishield eights week ago, to bring their Dhifaafu Covid-19 vaccination card and national identity card to the vaccine center.
HPA stopped administering Covishield first dose in Malé area on 15 March 2021 in preparation for the second dose. While Maldives is still administering first dose vaccine, the current vaccine available is Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine.
Maldives received 200,000 doses of Covishield as a donation from India which was used for the first round of vaccination and purchases additional 200,000 doses to administer as the second dose.
Those who had been given the first dose of the Covishield vaccine will receive Covishield vaccine as their 2nd dose vaccine, same goes for Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine.
Maldives has given emergency use approval for three vaccines, Covishield, Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine and Pfizer.
The Covid-19 Dhifaau program was launched on February 1 with the aim of inoculating all eligible resident population of the Maldives. Maldives has been lauded for practising vaccine equity in the International arena for giving free and equal access to vaccines to migrants regardless of their legal status. A total of 235.682 individuals have received the first dose of Covid-19 vaccine, including 130376 from Greater Malé Area and 105,306 from atolls.
