Over 80,000 people receive first dose of Covid-19 vaccine

Over 80,000 people in the Maldives had received the first dose of Covid-19 vaccine, by Monday evening.

The Health Protection Agency (HPA) revealed that the daily vaccination number for Monday stood 5,085. This includes 3,497 persons in capital Male’ as well as 1,588 in vaccination center across the country. Further, as part of the tourism ministry’s efforts to vaccinate frontline sector workers, a total of 443 were vaccinated from resorts by 8pm on Monday.

With Monday’s 5,085 persons, a total of 80,159 people have received the first dose of Covid-19 in the Maldives since the nationwide vaccination drive was launched on February 1. This includes 59,077 people from the Male’ region as well as 19,623 from atolls and 1,459 from resorts.

Health authorities have now opened the call for vaccination for all those over the age of 30, and for those between ages 18 and 30 considered to be at high-risk for complications from Covid-19 vaccination.

President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih has on multiple occasions stressed the government’s efforts to vaccinate all those living in the Maldives free of cost, within six months. Most recently, during his third presidential address on earlier this month, Solih revealed that the government has guaranteed contracts for the procurement of sufficient supplies of vaccines "to all Maldivians and residents", and called upon the public to continue to provide their full support to in the government’s Covid-19 recovery efforts.

The government launched the nationwide vaccination drive after receiving 100,000 doses of Covishield vaccine as grant aid from India on January 20. Earlier this week, during a visit by the country’s External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar, India will be gifting Maldives as additional 100,000 doses. Further, the Health Emergency Operations Centre (HEOC) has confirmed that an agreement has been signed with AstraZeneca Singapore Private Limited, to procure 700,000 vaccination doses. In addition to this, COVAX Advance Market Commitment (AMC) has accepted the country’s proposal for the free vaccine doses to be distributed to each nation; each nation is to receive enough to vaccinate 20 percent of the population, for free.