The UAE hinged its nationwide immunisation drive on the Sinopharm vaccine because of its early availability and the potential to produce the shots locally.
The Emirates, which has one of the fastest vaccine rollouts in the world, entered talks with 23 companies and engaged with them over three main factors, said Omar Najim, executive office director at Abu Dhabi’s Department of Health.
Early procurement and purchasing were among the main considerations, while conducting local clinical trials and manufacturing the vaccines in the country were the other points of engagement.
“Sinopharm, we felt very happy about,” Mr Najim told Bloomberg. “We have our own results.”
We haven’t hit a place where we’re struggling to find people to vaccinate
Omar Najim, executive office director of Abu Dhabi’s Department of Health
More than 6.2 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines have been administered across the country to date. The Sinopharm vaccine is the most widely used shot in the UAE and showed an efficacy rate of 86 per cent in local Phase III trials.
The UAE approved the vaccine after carrying out trials that included 31,000 volunteers and plans to begin manufacturing the vaccine this year. Russia’s Sputnik vaccine has also been granted emergency authorisation but has yet to be received in the Emirates.
The Oxford-AstraZeneca and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines have also been approved for use in Dubai.
“I think we secured enough, hopefully to get to good numbers to continue the vaccination drive we have,” said Mr Najim.
He said the UAE has a delivery schedule on Sinopharm doses. “We haven’t hit a place where we’re struggling to find people to vaccinate.”
At present, vaccines are being prioritised for Emiratis, the elderly, people with chronic diseases and the disabled. But authorities said this was only a temporary move to encourage some of the most vulnerable members of the community to get vaccinated.
More than 400,000 cases of Covid-19 have been reported since the start of the outbreak. About 1,200 people have died, giving the country one of the lowest case-mortality rates in the world.
“We are putting things in place, which is investing more into manufacturing and localising some of what we needed, even though it might not pay return on investment in the longer term,” Mr Najim said.
“But nevertheless, it becomes a national security element. That’s something that we’ll be taking forward.”
Updated: March 4, 2021 04:15 PM
