Kuwait: Kuwait government plans to give residents the option to take the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine even if they have taken Oxford-AstraZeneca as their first dose if there is an additional delay in receiving documents for the third shipment of Oxford doses that arrived in the country.
Kuwaiti minister of health Basil Al-Sabah said that the factory that supplied the Oxford vaccine has been late in supplying the vaccine to Kuwait.
Al-Sabah said such delays are a region-wide problem and that the state would use Pfizer shots instead for those waiting for Astra shots.
The minister added that the last shipment of the Oxford vaccine was stored in Kuwait and awaiting the results of the tests on June 8, according to the company’s promise. “The result will be ready within two to three days, and if it is healthy, the vaccination will be started directly,” he said.
He further says that the Oxford vaccine is the cheapest vaccine available in the world and its cost does not exceed 8 dollars compared to other vaccines that reach 20 and 26 dollars.
Although Kuwait has been administering the Pfizer and Oxford vaccines so far, the minister announced that Kuwait has signed a contract with American pharmaceutical companies to receive Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines.
While the two American vaccines are not given in Kuwait, they are approved by the Ministry of Health, so anyone who received an injection outside Kuwait will receive a certificate of vaccination.
Kuwait on Monday has recorded 1,479 new cases and 3 deaths in the span of 24 hours.