Over 100,000 people in the Greater Male' Area remain unvaccinated, statistics have shown.
The Maldives kicked off its vaccination campaign against COVID-19 in February this year. Since then, 271,552 people have completed the full dose of the vaccine while 323,568 people have received the first dose of the vaccine. The government earlier said around 27 percent of the eligible population remain unvaccinated.
A government official told AVAS said over 100,000 people in the Greater Male' Area have not completed the vaccine thus far. According to statistics, over 40,000 individuals have not received a single dose of the vaccine to date.
Four vaccines are used in the Maldives vaccination campaign. They are the India-manufactured COVISHIELD vaccine, China's Sinopharm vaccine, Pfizer vaccine, and the AstraZeneca vaccine.
The government has ensured adequate availability of COVID-19 vaccines to cater to the entire eligible population. In this regard, the Maldives received 200,000 doses of vaccine from neighboring India and another 200,000 vaccine doses from China as donations. China has said it would donate 300,000 more doses to the Maldives.
In addition to donations from friendly nations, the government also struck a deal with AstraZeneca Singapore to purchase 700,000 doses of the vaccine. Although the arrival of the stock was delayed significantly, the first shipment from the stock has now arrived in the Maldives. An additional 300,000 vaccine doses are being purchased from India. The government is also in talks with Russia to purchase the Sputnik V vaccine. It also obtained vaccines and syringes through the World Health Organization (WHO).
The government has ensured that no interruption will be caused to its large-scale nationwide COVID-19 vaccination campaign due to the lack of vaccines. It hopes to inoculate 90 percent of the eligible population by end of August. An appointment basis for vaccine administration has been adopted to facilitate an organized system to provide vaccination services to the public.
The Maldives has recorded 77.633 COVID-19 cases and 221 deaths to date. After a devastating fourth wave of infections in May, the situation in the Maldives has improved significantly. 2,472 cases are active at this time.
