Health professionals have beaten Thursday's earlier record for most number of vaccinations conducted in a day with a total of 5,717 persons vaccinated against Covid-19 nationwide on Saturday.

According to the Health Protection Agency's most recent vaccination update, a daily record was established with a total of 5,717 people vaccinated against Covid-19, which is 551 persons more than the previous record made on Thursday.

Of the 5,717 who received their vaccine doses on Saturday, 4,609 persons were inoculated in eight vaccination centers across Greater Male', which amounts to roughly 80.6 percent of all vaccinations conducted. With this, a total of 27,065 people have been vaccinated from the Greater Male' area since the national Covid-19 vaccination programme was initiated in February.

Saturday saw 1,108 people receive Covid-19 vaccines from 54 vaccination centers established across different atolls of the country, bringing the national total of all those vaccinated in atolls up to 6,041.

As of sundown on Saturday, a total of 33,106 people have been administered doses of the Covid-19 vaccine in the Maldives. HPA statistics show that there were 62 active vaccination centers across Maldives on Saturday.

Beginning Sunday, health authorities will be initiating vaccination programmes for all those above the age of 50 and those between 18 and 50 considered to be at high-risk of complications from Covid-19. For the Greater Male' Area, vaccinations will continue for between 9am and 5pm at the Social Center, Islamic Center (Masjid al-Sultan) and at the Hulhumale' Flu Clinic. In addition to this, vaccinations will be conducted from 9am to 1pm at the Villimalle' Youth Center as well.

The University of Oxford, which developed the formula for the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covishield vaccines in association with the AstraZeneca company, revealed on Saturday that they had launched a first-time study to asses the safety, immune responses and effectivity observed in administering their vaccine to children between the ages of 6 and 17.

The Oxford-AstraZeneca Covishield vaccine can be refrigerated at manageable temperatures, and has been hailed as the "vaccine of the world' due to low manufacturing costs that make it more accessible to even the most disadvantaged communities battling Covid-19.