Kuwait authorises emergency use of Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine

Kuwait has authorised the emergency use of Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine for use within the country.

The approval was granted on Friday, January 29, the same day that the EU too approved the vaccine for use within the EU market.

Kuwait’s authorisation was issued after conducting a comprehensive evaluation of the vaccine’s safety, efficacy and quality, assistant undersecretary for drug and food control Dr. Abdullah Al-Bader was quoted by state news agency KUNA as saying in a press statement on Friday.

Bahrain too  approved the emergency use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, manufactured by the Serum Institute of India under the name Covishield, last week.

Read: Bahrain approves emergency use of Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine

Kuwait will reportedly receive the first batch of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine doses within days, he added.

On December 13, Kuwait’s Ministry of Health approved the emergency use of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against Covid-19.

Read: Kuwait approves emergency use of Pfizer vaccine

To demonstrate the safety of it, Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah too received the first dose of the vaccine last month.

It aims to vaccinate 80 per cent of its population by September this year.

As of January 30, it has reported a total of 164,622 infections, including 959 fatalities as a result of it and 157,404 recoveries.