Muscat: Oman expects to receive up to three million doses of COVID-19 vaccinations between now and August 2021, informed Oman’s Ministry of Health.
The Ministry of Health has prepared the ‘National Strategy for Immunization against Covid-19’, which aims to vaccinate 3.2 million people, close to 70 percent of the total population excluding those under the age of 18 years.
The total number of doses is estimated at five million and four hundred thousand doses which also includes the second shot for those who have already had the first one. Oman’s vaccination drive was based on the immediate necessity to control the spread of the virus among the vulnerable group in the society that in itself contributed to 70 percent of the population.
Limit the spread
Serological survey conducted towards the last quarter of the 2020 combined with the targeted vaccination drive and identifying those active cases to be admitted to intensive care units, helped limit the spread to an extent. The vaccination drive was also done in two phases with the first phase comprising of inoculating 30 percent of the population, close to 400,000, from the most vulnerable groups and includes those above 50. The time line planned for this phase was from December last year till June this year.
The second phase, starting from July till December this year targets 40 percent of the population, equivalent to 1.8 million and includes those age group that are considered as the least vulnerable and includes among others those aged between 18 to 50 years and also students under 18 years of age.
