Health Minister: Maldives will receive enough to vaccinate 10,000 per day, will also secure Pfizer vaccine

Health Minister Ahmed Naseem states the government plans on bringing in enough vaccines to expand Maldives’ COVID-19 vaccine drive to all islands and administer shots to 10,000 people per day.

Maldives began administering the first dose of Covishield vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford, and produced by the Serum Institute of India, in a ceremony at the Social Center in Male’ City on Monday morning.

Speaking to press after the ceremony, Health Minister Naseem said the government hopes to ramp up the rate of inoculation to 10,000 per day.

“We are currently administering the vaccine to a very few people. Once we become adept in this, this will be carried out at a faster pace, within a week’s time.

Naseem encouraged people to get vaccinated in order to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic which has now plagued the world for over a year.

“Vaccination is the best path to overcoming this. If we can vaccinate a lot of the people, we can overcome this very soon,” he said.

Naseem said the government will ensure Maldives continues to receive enough vaccines to ensure the vaccine drive goes smoothly.

Maldives received 100,000 doses of the Covidshield vaccine donated by India on January 20, and has signed an agreement with AstraZeneca to procure 700,000 more doses.

Naseem said Maldives will receive the 700,000 doses in March, and the first batch of vaccines from World Health Organization (WHO) earlier than that, on February 14.

“We will begin receiving the vaccines from WHO starting the 14^th of this month. In Sha Allah, we do not need to worry about vaccines. We will get them,” he said.

Naseem said the government plans on securing additional vaccine brands, including the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

“We will bring in different vaccines to Maldives. We will also bring in the Pfizer vaccine,” he said.

Speaking to press at the ceremony at the Social Center, President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih said the government aims to vaccinate everyone who resides in Maldives within the next six months.