Kuwait City: On Sunday, the Ministry of Health began vaccinating non-Kuwaitis starting off with the elderly and those with chronic illnesses, local media reported.
A member of the COVID-19 health committee, Khaled Al Jarallah, stressed that the Ministry has ramped up vaccinations and opened new vaccination centers in order to vaccinate as many people as possible with the aim of reaching herd immunity.
Given that only those above the age of 16 are eligible to receive the vaccine, based on last week’s statistics revealed by the Minister of Health, Dr. Basel Al Sabah, out of the three and a half million people above the age of 16 in Kuwait 137,000 of them have received the vaccine.
Almost half a million people have pre-registered to receive the vaccine, 238,00 of them are non-Kuwaitis. Majority of the non-Kuwaitis that have been vaccinated are health care and frontline workers.
So far, around 86.8 per cent of the total number of people who have been vaccinated are Kuwaitis.
Vaccination drive
One of the main reasons Kuwait began vaccinating more people, around 15,000 to 20,000 in the last few days according to local media, is due to the spike in COVID-19 cases.
The increase in the number of vaccines administered also comes as Kuwait opens 25 vaccination centres, including the mobile vaccination units that are being used for those who are bedridden.
A few weeks ago, Dr. Basel pointed out that if vaccines arrive in Kuwait in a consistent manner and more people register to get the vaccine, Kuwait will be done vaccinating the majority of the population by September.
