Health Emergency Operation Centre (HEOC) has stated over 19,000 people have registered to get vaccinated against COVID-19 in the Maldives.
HEOC had opened registration for vaccination on January 18. Spokesperson of HEOC and the Head of National Vaccination Programme Dr. Fathimath Nazla Rafeeq revealed 19,666 people have registered in the online portal so far.
The vaccination portal is currently open only for healthcare workers and social care workers. Other priority groups for vaccination include essential workers, individuals over the age of 50 and high-risk individuals with pre-existing health conditions that could get complicated upon contracting COVID-19.
HPA had earlier stated the vaccines produced to fight COVID-19 have been tested for certain age groups. Noting the vaccines have not been tested on children under the age of 16, HPA stated children in this age group will not be vaccinated.
On January 20, the Maldives received its first batch of COVID-19 vaccines from India. The first batch includes 100,000 doses of the Covishield vaccine, manufactured by the Serum Institute of India based on the research done by AstraZeneca and Oxford University.