Oman starts COVID-19 vaccination from Sunday

A duty-free employee, wearing a protective face mask due to the Covid-19 pandemic, restocks a shelf at the Muscat international airport in the Omani capital on October 1, 2020 [MOHAMMED MAHJOUB/AFP via Getty Images]

Oman has announced that it will begin rolling out its coronavirus vaccination campaign from Sunday, reports Anadolu Agency.

The official Oman News Agency (ONA) reported on Saturday that the Sultanate will kick-start its COVID-19 vaccination campaign with the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech prioritising the most vulnerable groups including frontline workers, people with chronic diseases, and the elderly.

It will thus become the sixth Arab country and the last one in the Gulf to begin vaccination.

According to ONA, the first shipment of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine arrived in the Sultanate’s Muscat International Airport.

So far, eight Arab countries including all six Gulf states have received the vaccines. The other two Arab countries are Morocco and Sudan. Five of them, all Gulf states – the UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar, have already launched their vaccination campaigns.

There has been a surge in COVID-19 cases and fatalities in Arab countries with Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Palestine announcing more fatalities linked to the novel coronavirus on Saturday.

Read: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman to close borders over new COVID strain

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