COVID-19: Kuwait expecting 5th batch of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to arrive on Sunday

Cairo: Kuwait is expanding its vaccinations against COVID-19, hoping it will inoculate at least 2.4 million people in four months to return to normal life, a local newspaper reported Thursday.

Attaining this objective requires vaccinating 20,000 people per day, i.e. 600,000 per month, Al Jarida newspaper said.

However, reaching this level will depend on the availability of the vaccine doses as well as interest among people to get the jabs, it explained.

Around 16,000 people at present get the inoculation on average per day, against the daily average of 1,200 people when Kuwait kicked off the vaccination last December, health sources told the paper.

Daily capacity

“With this daily capacity of 16,000 persons per day, we can reach the community immunity in six months from now, i.e. by the end of August. By this time, 2.88 million people will have been vaccinated,” a source said.

Kuwait is due to receive the fifth batch of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine next Sunday, Dr Abdullah Al Badr, an assistant undersecretary for Pharmaceutical Affairs said Thursday.

Kuwait launched the vaccination drive on December 27. Around 137,000 people, including 119,000 Kuwaitis so far have received the jabs. A total of 454,522 people have registered in Kuwait until Monday for receiving the vaccine.