Kuwait City: After weeks of confusion and panic, the documents authenticating the third shipment of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine arrived on Tuesday and have been cleared by the Ministry of Health, proving that the shipment is safe to use.
In a statement, the Ministry of Health said it will start administering the second dose of the Oxford vaccine to all those who are eligible, starting on Wednesday.
On the first day today, Mishref vaccination centre, the largest in Kuwait, saw massive crowds and overcrowding as lines stretched outside the vaccination halls.
The documents to authenticate the shipment were highly anticipated as hundreds of thousand citizens and residents had passed the 12-week mark since receiving their first dose.
During a televised interview on Kuwait TV, the Minister of Health, Dr. Basel Al Sabah, stated they are planning to administer the second dose to all 200,000 citizens and residents within 10 days across 30 vaccination centres.
Delayed documents
Despite the fact that the shipment arrived on May 10, the doses were sitting in a storage facility while the Ministry of Health awaited the documentation and certificates of the batch to ensure its safety and efficacy.
Last week, the ministry said in a statement that the documents were supposed to be handed over on May 31 but due delays they expected them to arrive on June 8.
Dr. Basel said during the interview that the delay of the shipment was due to a region-wide problem, as several other Gulf countries have been witnessing delays as well.
New vaccines
To ensure that there is no shortage of vaccines, on Tuesday, the Ministry of Health authorised the emergency use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
The decision comes after the Minister of Health, Dr. Basel Al Sabah, announced earlier this week that Kuwait has contracted US pharmaceutical companies to supply both the Johnson & Johnson and Moderna vaccines.
