• Qatar marks one year of Covid vaccination programme
Further measures will be announced soon to provide the Covid-19 vaccine booster dose to people who have taken the second dose more than six months ago, a senior health official has said.
Dr Abdullatif al-Khal, chair of the National Strategic Group on Covid-19 and head of the Infectious Diseases Division at Hamad Medical Corporation, spoke about various issues related to Covid-19, the Omicron variant and vaccination.
In an interview to Qatar TV, he also urged people to wear masks and maintain social distancing in closed spaces, noting that the coming weeks are important.
Qatar on Thursday marked one year of its National Covid-19 Vaccination Programme. On December 23, 2020, former Qatar University president Dr Abdulla al-Kubaisi became the first person in Qatar to receive the Covid-19 vaccine.
Over the past year, healthcare teams have delivered the biggest vaccination programme in Qatar’s history and more than 5.14mn doses of the vaccine have been administered so far.
According to the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH), 86% of Qatar's total population have received two doses of the vaccine, while 223,447 booster doses have been administered to date.
Dr al-Khal explained Omicron cases were detected in Qatar last week among people who came back from travel, and were in the quarantine stage, and none of them needed hospital admission.
“Omicron is expected to become the dominant strain around the world, as we have seen in the United States, where three out of four infections are of the Omicron variant,” he said.
"Omicron is characterised by more than 50 mutations in general and over 30 of these mutations are present on the surface of the virus. This means two things: first, it increases the ability of the virus to spread among people. Omicron's ability to spread is three to six times that of the Delta strain, spreading very fast within a short period. Second, it can infect a large group of people who can contract the virus by mixing with each other for a short period," he explained.
Preliminary studies have shown that the current vaccines are effective against the Omicron strain, but the effectiveness of a vaccine taken six months ago wanes against the new strain, and therefore one has to take the booster dose, he stressed.
"This is encouraging because there were concerns that the new variant does not respond to vaccines. But so far, the vaccines have proven that they are effective against all strains that have appeared since the first appearance of Covid-19."
The booster dose is being administered in Qatar since mid-September. The dose has been given to more than 220,000 people and there is a good demand for it, he said, noting that no serious side effects were reported.
“We call on everyone to take the booster vaccine, and the side effects after this dose do not exceed the symptoms seen after the previous doses, so there is no need to be afraid,” he assured the public. "We still need to give the Covid-19 booster dose to everyone who received two doses of the vaccine more than six months ago, and intensive measures will be announced soon in this regard."
Scientific evidence shows a decrease in the acquired immunity against the Delta and Omicron strains over time since vaccination, and taking the booster dose raises the levels of antibodies significantly, he said.
He also advised people, especially in the coming weeks, to wear the mask and maintain social distancing in closed places, as the mask is effective in preventing the spread of the virus.
Regarding the overall progress of vaccination in Qatar, he said: "More than 85% of the population of Qatar has received two doses (of the vaccine). This is a great achievement and we are in a much better situation than we were a year ago, as we had no vaccines before that. He stressed that the success of the national vaccination campaign is the result of co-operation from all members of society, and this is evident from the community’s confidence in the safety and security of vaccination, despite the spread of false information about the safety of vaccines."
Qatar has one of the highest vaccination coverage rates in the world and the region and this helped the country avoid new waves over the past few months, unlike what some other nations witnessed, he noted.
The national campaign has had an effective impact on this. "We gave vaccines to the most vulnerable people at the beginning of the campaign, such as the elderly, people with chronic diseases and those taking immunosuppressive drugs. They were intensively targeted at the beginning and there was great co-operation from them. We helped reduce hospitalisations and significantly curbed the number of deaths that could have occurred among these particular vulnerable sections," the official said.
Dr al-Khal advised unvaccinated people to take the first and second doses, while urging fully vaccinated individuals to take the booster dose once they become eligible.
The national programme would not have succeeded without the concerted efforts of all State institutions, the great support received from all sides, and the provision of necessary resources for the success of the initiative, he added.
Dr al-Khal also advised that those who show symptoms of infection should avoid exposing others to them. In such cases, they must wear a mask, isolate themselves and go to the nearest government or private health centre to be examined to ensure that they are not infected with Covid-19.
