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Ailyn Agonia
Doha
As part of its efforts to ramp up COVID-19 vaccination campaign, Qatar on Wednesday launched an initiative to give the elderly and their close family members vaccines at the comfort of their homes.
Dr Abdullatif Al Khal, Chairman of Qatar’s National Pandemic Preparedness Committee, said the initiative is aimed at encouraging many of the elderly people to get the vaccine as Qatar aims to vaccinate at least 90 percent of the eligible population before the end of the year.
Dr Al Khal, who is also the Head of Infectious Diseases at Hamad Medical Corporation, said, “We aim to cover up to 90 percent of the eligible population before the end of the year. So this requires a lot of resources and this is happening at a time when we need to dedicate resources to fight the pandemic,” Dr Al Khal said during the Education City Speaker Series Edition held in collaboration with World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH).
He said vaccines being given to people at 27 health centres across the country seven days a week from 7 am to 11 pm. The recently opened vaccination centre at the Qatar National Convention Centre can deliver 8,000 doses a day to 8,000 people, he added.
“This boosted our ability. We also trained nurses at different ministries and other government entities on vaccination like the Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Interior, oil and gas companies and Qatar Airways. Now, they are vaccinating their frontline workers at their own facility,” he said.
Earlier this month, an announcement was made on quarantine exemption to fully vaccinated residents and citizens of Qatar valid for a period of three months starting 14 days after the second dose.
Dr Al Khal said this is a starting point and upon further review of data the exemption period could be extend to six months.
“We based that decision on the available data of the duration of the protective level of antibodies in the blood following the second dose. But there is more emerging information in that the duration is probably longer. We hope that it would be at least a year or even more. We are reviewing the data as it emerges regularly even on daily and weekly basis and we are ready to extend this to six month validity as soon as we know there is enough information to do that. Before the end of six months we will do the same again and we will probably extend the validity,” he said.
Doha
As part of its efforts to ramp up COVID-19 vaccination campaign, Qatar on Wednesday launched an initiative to give the elderly and their close family members vaccines at the comfort of their homes.
Dr Abdullatif Al Khal, Chairman of Qatar’s National Pandemic Preparedness Committee, said the initiative is aimed at encouraging many of the elderly people to get the vaccine as Qatar aims to vaccinate at least 90 percent of the eligible population before the end of the year.
Dr Al Khal, who is also the Head of Infectious Diseases at Hamad Medical Corporation, said, “We aim to cover up to 90 percent of the eligible population before the end of the year. So this requires a lot of resources and this is happening at a time when we need to dedicate resources to fight the pandemic,” Dr Al Khal said during the Education City Speaker Series Edition held in collaboration with World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH).
He said vaccines being given to people at 27 health centres across the country seven days a week from 7 am to 11 pm. The recently opened vaccination centre at the Qatar National Convention Centre can deliver 8,000 doses a day to 8,000 people, he added.
“This boosted our ability. We also trained nurses at different ministries and other government entities on vaccination like the Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Interior, oil and gas companies and Qatar Airways. Now, they are vaccinating their frontline workers at their own facility,” he said.
Earlier this month, an announcement was made on quarantine exemption to fully vaccinated residents and citizens of Qatar valid for a period of three months starting 14 days after the second dose.
Dr Al Khal said this is a starting point and upon further review of data the exemption period could be extend to six months.
“We based that decision on the available data of the duration of the protective level of antibodies in the blood following the second dose. But there is more emerging information in that the duration is probably longer. We hope that it would be at least a year or even more. We are reviewing the data as it emerges regularly even on daily and weekly basis and we are ready to extend this to six month validity as soon as we know there is enough information to do that. Before the end of six months we will do the same again and we will probably extend the validity,” he said.
