Muscat: The Sultanate’s Ministry of Health today launched a campaign targeting a new segment of the society as part of its COVID-19 national immunization drive using the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.

The campaign targets people aged 65 and above across all governorates of the Sultanate, irrespective of whether they are ‘healthy’ or not. The vaccine will be given at designated immunization centres.

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The two-dose vaccine will be administered in intervals of four weeks.

It should be noted that people who have already received the first dose of Pfizer-bioNTech will not be given the new vaccine. The Oman News Agency confirmed that the Ministry of Health will announce the date of applying for the second dose of Pfizer-BioNTech later.

The Minister also stated that the preliminary indication is that the vaccines are effective against the new strains of the virus.

Speaking to the media in a press conference, the minister said: “The Serum Institute of India (SII) is one of the largest vaccine factories in the world.

The Minister also confirmed that the step to obtain the vaccine reinforces the global efforts aimed at overcoming the Coronavirus pandemic and make vaccines available among all people of the world.