Muscat: The Sultanate’s Ministry of Health began administering the second dose of vaccines as a part of the national immunization strategy aimed to tackle the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

The first dose of the Pfizer-BionNTech vaccine was administered to target segments over the past few weeks in different parts of the Sultanate.

After receiving the second dose of the vaccine against COVID-19 at Bausher Polyclinic, Dr. Ahmed Mohammed al-Sa’eedi, the Minister of Health, reaffirmed that no side-effects were reported among recipients of the first dose, noting that the number of doses stood at 38,900.

In a statement to Oman News Agency (ONA), the minister pointed out that the period separating the two doses is three weeks but can be extended to 4 weeks. He said that the first phase of the national COVID-19 immunization campaign saw a large turnout.

The minister added that the level of coverage in the Muscat governorate stood at 100 per cent while the rest of the governorates in the Sultanate showed very high rates of coverage.

He pointed out that the factor that limits vaccination in Oman is not the financial cost or logistics, but the availability of the vaccine, which sees a large global rush.

He hoped that more vaccines would be made available to cover the most vulnerable groups. He pointed out that the new variant is “very fast in spreading”, but its riskiness is no different to the mother virus and its response to vaccination remains unaffected.

The minister stressed that all individuals and communities should stick to precautionary measures to keep the virus at bay.

As many as 24,773 of the target people were vaccinated during the first phase of the campaign targeting most prone segments like people suffering chronic diseases, the elderly, and frontline operators.

The Ministry of Health will go ahead with the second dose and it will update the target segments through scheduled awareness programmes via the media so that all vaccinated ones could get the second dose within prescribed timeframes.