A senior executive from AstraZeneca, the developer of one of the leading Covid-19 vaccines in partnership with Oxford University, has praised the UAE’s vaccine rollout program.
To date, over 12.1 million vaccination doses have been administered in the UAE with a vaccine distribution rate of over 124 doses per 100 people, with approximately 70,000 doses of the vaccine administered daily.
In terms of population vaccinated, the UAE is currently fourth after the Seychelles, Maldives and Israel.
There are four vaccines in the UAE for use – Sinopharm, Pfizer-BioNTech, Sputnik V and AstraZeneca. The UAE is offering these vaccines to its citizens and residents free of charge and on optional basis.
Qutaiba Al Manaseer, government affairs director, Middle East and Africa, AstraZeneca, said: “Middle East countries have been successful in their efforts to make vaccines available as soon as possible. Health authorities across the region have developed agile regulatory systems and adapted rolling review strategies to ensure a fast but thorough regulatory process.
“Specifically, the UAE ranks among the best in the world in terms of the speed of its vaccination programme. This is attributed to strong efforts from key senior stakeholders who worked collaboratively with health authorities to deliver impactful campaigns that are aimed at increasing the trust in the safety of vaccines available in the country, and uptake from the local population,” added Al Manaseer.
The comments were made ahead of the inaugural Pharma and Drug Discovery Conference to be held on the opening day of Arab Health, which takes place next month at the Dubai World Trade Centre.
Al Manaseer will be presenting the session Oxford University and AstraZeneca partnership towards broad and equitable access to Covid-19 vaccine.
“From the start of the pandemic, AstraZeneca’s approach has focused on partnering with scientists, governments, multilateral organisations and manufacturers to establish agreements for the development and supply of our vaccine, and to fight the pandemic, together,” he said.
He added that AstraZeneca has delivered 37 million doses of its vaccine, including critical deliveries to countries in the Middle East.
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Ross Williams, exhibition director at Arab Health, said: “Drug development has been at the forefront of the news agenda for almost 18 months and will continue to be a topic of discussion for the foreseeable future. At Arab Health we are committed to addressing the most relevant topics in the healthcare sector and as such have brought together global experts to inform and shape the future of innovative models in drug discovery.”
Arab Health is expected to welcome 3,500 exhibiting companies and over 51,000 attendees from 170 countries from June 21-24.
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