The Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) to shoulder all coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccines to those who need it all over Qatar, free of charge.
According to Dr. Abdullatif Al Khal, the Chair of the National Health Strategic Group on COVID-19 and Head of Infectious Diseases at Hamad Medical Corporation, “Qatar is seeking to secure enough quantities of vaccination over a period of weeks and months... this is important for individual, public and community health,”
He added the MoPH has been doing everything to secure the vaccines from private companies and make it available to the public as soon as possible.“So far, there are very good indications. Pfizer, one of these companies that the Ministry of Public Health has signed an agreement with, is doing well. It is very much possible that its vaccine will be approved by the end of October or in November,” he said.
Dr Khal said that clinical trials are currently being conducted on 44,000 people from various countries around the world and once these trials are proven safe and effective, the vaccines will be exported to several countries, including Qatar.
“We hope Qatar will get to obtain the first quantities of the vaccine at the end of the year or early next year.”
The ministry has contacted pharmaceutical companies that already passed the initial trials of the vaccine, "Discussion is continuing with a number of companies," he added.
By 2021, Pfizer will produce one billion doses of the vaccines. Today, an estimated 100 million doses will be shipped to different countries and Qatar is among those countries hoping to buy the vaccines in large quantities possible.
