Emirates considers development of its own COVID-19 vaccine
"Our leadership position is to provide as much support to international community. However, we are not a vaccine manufacturer and we are building up capacity for future manufacturing of COVID-19 vaccine as well,” said Dr Farida al-Hosani, health sector spokesperson and head of the Communicable Diseases Section at the Department of Health Abu Dhabi.
The UAE is building up its capacity to manufacture the COVID-19 vaccine in the future, and the country’s position is to provide as much support as it can to the international community, said Dr Farida Al Hosani, official spokesperson for the UAE health sector. The UAE is supporting other states in vaccine supply, infrastructure and knowledge sharing.
UAE’s strategic priority is to secure the vaccines for residents as early as possible, through discussions with various vaccine manufactures. That plan involves initiating a solo project to develop its own vaccine.
Since last March, the UAE has recorded a total of 310,000 cases and 866 deaths. The UAE authorities' handling of the pandemic led them to make the list of the top 10 countries to combat the pandemic, according to the Global Soft Power Index.
The UAE has been trying to control the virus through an ambitious vaccination programme launched in December. The aim was to vaccinate half of its nearly ten million people by next April, which has led them to implement more lax measures on the restrictive side.
The latest records indicate that it has already administered just over three million doses, i.e. it has vaccinated about a quarter of its total population. The development of this plan has made the UAE - with a population of 1 million - the country with the second highest number of vaccinations per 100 inhabitants, after Israel.
The UAE also ranks sixth in the world in terms of total doses inoculated with a total of 3.4 million. Six places behind is Bahrain. Its Gulf neighbour has administered nearly 200,000 vaccines.
Unlike Israel, both the UAE and Bahrain were early adopters of the BBIBP-CorV vaccine, developed by Chinese company Sinopharm. In addition to the logistical support provided by the UAE in sending doses to other states, the country is one of the largest stockpilers of vaccines in the world.
The UAE retains a large number of doses developed by several manufacturers. The latest to arrive is AstraZeneca.
The British vaccine is the most recent addition to the list of COVID-19 vaccines offered by the Dubai Health Authority. This list also includes vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Sinopharm.
The AstraZeneca vaccine will be available at the vaccination centre in the city for all Emirati citizens between 18 and 60 years of age, as well as for people "with chronic diseases between the ages of 18 and 60, provided they have a valid Dubai visa," said Dr Al-Hosani. However, according to The Guardian, "China’s Sinopharm vaccine is being offered to a handful of wealthy people paying for access to the United Arab Emirates’ Covid-19 vaccination programme as part of a partnership to “bring tourism into the area”.
The vaccine is in wide usage in the UAE but is yet to receive emergency approval from the UK government or the World Health Organization. The Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine, also approved in the Emirates, is not included in the pay-to-access deal.
This offer would be the first test of the commercial use of the COVID-19 vaccine initiated by a state.
