Saudi Arabia acknowledges delays in receiving Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine

Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Health said on Wednesday that it was mulling rescheduling the appointments for those who registered to receive their first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine, due to “the delay of the producing company in supplying the vaccine to the kingdom”.

Read: Saudi approves registration of Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine

In a statement issued on the official Saudi Press Agency, it added that the health ministry will continue to implement the national vaccination campaign against the virus and will launch more vaccine centers across all the regions within the country.

Earlier this week, health ministry approved two more vaccines for use in the country made by AstraZeneca and Moderna.

As of January 20, the country had reported a total of 365,563 infections, including 6,338 deaths.

There are reportedly 400,000 people in the country’s Easter province who have already signed up for the vaccine through the ministry’s Sehhaty app, of which around 60,000 have already been vaccinated.

According to those local media reports Saudi was receiving around 100,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine a week, and it aimed to vaccinate at least 80 per cent of its population.

Countries around the world are attempting to get a supply of the Pfizer. Countries like Italy are reported to be considering legal action against Pfizer over delays in shipments after it received only 48,000 vaccines this week, compared to an allocated 397,000. Last week too it received 165,000 vaccines less than was planned.