Muscat: Dr. Ahmed bin Mohammed al Saeedi, the Minister of Health, said that the Covid-19 vaccine will be launched in Oman on Sunday and added that people targeted for vaccination in the first stage are those with chronic diseases and medical staff.
The minister told Oman TV that there is no need to impose the lockdown in the Sultanate at the moment.
He said that there are no indications that the new strain of the virus is more virulent and it will not affect the effectiveness of the new vaccine.
"There is no evidence that the current vaccines need to be developed to eradicate the new strains. The decrease in Coronavirus cases registered in the Sultanate is due to societal awareness and commitment to precautionary measures."
He added there are about 300 companies at the global level that have studies and research in relation to vaccinations or the vaccine against and the Sultanate has reserved about 10 percent of its vaccine needs through the Global Vaccine Alliance, which includes 186 countries.
The minister said that the Supreme Committee’s decision today was a precaution due to the inability to determine the countries in which the new strain of Covid 19 is spreading.
"In the past few days, there have been reports of new variants of the COVID-19 virus in South Africa and the United Kingdom. Viruses mutate over time; that’s natural and expected. The UK has reported that this new variant transmits more easily but there is no evidence so far that it is more likely to cause severe disease or mortality," WHO said on Monday.
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