Malé, Maldives – The government announced today that the the equipment required to launch the Covid-19 booster program for the general public will arrive in a week’s time.
With this, the administration of public wide booster shots will commence in mid-January.
We now have enough vaccine doses to vaccinate the general public.
Dr. Shah Mahir, Minister of State, Health Ministry
Previously, the government aimed to start this program in December 2021 but failed to launch the program due to the lack of syringes to administer the vaccine doses.
The island nation had acquired enough doses of Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine as aid. The United States donated 100,620 Pfizer doses via the COVAX facility on 18 December 2021.
Maldives is currently administering booster doses to health and tourism frontliners, eligible adults over 50, immunocompromised and patients under treatment for long term illnesses.
The island nation has vaccinated 27,474 individuals with booster doses.
There is an urgency to commence the booster shots as the Maldives faces an impending Covid-19 wave peak towards the end of January 2022 with the confirmation of a local Omicron spread.
