Kuwait City: Kuwait’s Ministry of Health said in statement on Monday that they will be postponing the second dose of both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines as shipment are delayed due to worldwide shortages.
The second dose of Pfizer vaccine will be given four weeks after the first one, except for those who are above the age of 60, who will continue to receive it after 21 days.
As for the Oxford vaccine, the second dose will be given between three to four weeks’ after the first one, instead of 12 weeks after the first dose.
In the statement, the Ministry of Health pointed out that the delay will not affect the efficiency of the vaccine and is in line with procedures followed by Canada, the UK, France and Spain.
The Ministry added that all those who are awaiting their first or second dose will receive a message with the date, time and location of their vaccine appointment.
Delays
Last week, the Ministry of Health decided to keep the remaining quantities of the second shipment for those who received the first dose in early February. The second shipment arrived at the beginning of April and contained approximately 129,000 doses.
As for the Pfizer vaccine, Kuwait has so far received 14 shipments since December 2020.
In the next few days, five new equipped vaccination centres will begin operations and will be fully equipped to administer the Pfizer vaccine. So far, Pfizer has being administered only at the Mishref fairground as that is where the vaccines are being stored in freezers.
Kuwait reached a milestone last week after the Ministry of Health announced that over one million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered. Around 27 per cent of the population has received at least one jab of the vaccine.
