Dubai to offer EXPO 2020 participants covid vaccine

Dubai will offer COVID-19 vaccines to all official representatives of countries participating in EXPO 2020, due to be held from October 2021 to March 2022, the state-run news agency WAM reported.

“More than 1,000 employees of Expo 2020 Dubai and their families are expected to receive the Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine, approved by UAE health authorities and already in widespread use across the country,” the EXPO 2020 website says.

This, it added, is “part of Expo’s wider commitment to the health and well-being of its workforce, it follows the opening of mass testing facilities on-site in April 2020.”

Precautionary measures to manage and mitigate the risks of COVID-19 are also being implemented including capacity restrictions, thermal cameras at all arrival points, social distancing, mandatory mask-wearing, and hand sanitiser stations.

No detailed efficacy data of Sinopharm’s COVID-19 vaccine has been publicly released but its developer, Beijing Biological Products Institute, a unit of Sinopharm subsidiary China National Biotec Group (CNBG), said the vaccine was 79.34 per cent effective in preventing people from developing the disease based on interim data. It has been approved in several countries including China, Pakistan, and the UAE, Reuters reported.

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