Kuwait City: The spokesman of the Ministry of Health, Dr. Abdullah Al Sanad, said in a press conference on Tuesday that within one year 2.7 million citizens and residents will be vaccinated.
With a population of around 4 million, this means that 67.5 per cent of the population will be immunized.
So far, the only vaccine being administered in Kuwait is the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine as Kuwait awaits the approval of the Oxford-Astrazeneca by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Al Sanad mentioned that once the Oxford vaccine is approved it will be brought to Kuwait and will be administered in clinics as it does not need to be stored in special freezers.
The press conference was held a few hours after Kuwait reported that two Kuwaiti women who arrived from the United Kingdom tested positive for the COVID-19 variant.
Given that these are the first two cases reported in Kuwait, Al Sanad assured the public the situation in the country is under control and stable.
Vaccine roll out
As of last week, more than 20,000 people have received the COVID-19 vaccine, since Kuwait began its campaign on December 24. Therefore, so far only 0.5 per cent of the population is vaccinated.
While priority is being given to those above 65 and frontline and health workers, so far over 250,000 citizens and residents have pre-registered to receive the vaccine.
Currently, Kuwait is only administrating the Pfizer vaccine and has received three batches. The first batch, which arrived on December 23, contained 150,000 doses, sufficient for 75,000 people. The second and third batches of vaccines arrived within a week apart from another. The quantity of the doses has not been made public.
