Workers of Mawaleh market get vaccinated

@kabeeryousef

Hundreds of workers, employers and other stakeholders inside the Central Fruit and Vegetable Market in Mawaleh got vaccinated with the first dose on Wednesday as part of the ongoing mass vaccination campaign.

The camp that began inside the hall adjacent to the Municipality office at the market's main entrance saw an excited crowd queuing up since 7 am well before the campaign started at 8 am.

As many as 1,500 people can get the shot per day while nearly 4,000 workers are engaged in commercial activities directly or indirectly with the market, one of the region's largest vegetable markets.

"We are able to vaccinate nearly 1,500 people a day, and we are giving Sinovac vaccine free of cost to the people associated with the Central Fruits and Vegetable Market and it is going smoothly," a Muscat Municipality official told the Observer.

Oman keeps adding newer groups to the existing list of target groups as part of the national vaccination strategy and workers inside the Mawaleh market are the new target group and this is expected to help achieve the goal of vaccinating 70 per cent of the population by the year end, according to the Ministry officials.

In association with various bodies, the Ministry of Health (MoH) has been organising vaccination campaigns for various target groups and ministries as well as public and private groups and majority people are seen taking their vaccine from the vaccination centres and private hospitals.

Oman launched a vaccination programme with the first target group of people, and the groups included people above 65 years, people suffering from chronic diseases, frontline workers including medical staff and the like at various schools, grounds and the like some six months ago.

Later, the mass vaccination camp for people above 45 years of age began at the OCEC on June 20 and continued for many weeks. The MoH kept on adding more target groups and more governmental departments, ministries and Public Authorities in the past few weeks and the target group of youngsters above 18 was added a week ago.