Private health workers to be vaccinated from next week: Dr al-Khal

 

 The Covid-19 vaccine will be provided to health workers in private hospitals and clinics starting next week, and they will be contacted accordingly and given appointments, a senior health official has said.Dr Abdullatif al-Khal, chair of the National Health Strategic Group on Covid-19 and head of Infectious Diseases at Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC), also told a press conference organised by the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) on Wednesday that around 12% of the population over the age of 16 years have received at least one dose of the vaccine."We hope that a large percentage of Qatar's population would have received the vaccine by this summer," he said.Dr Ahmed al-Mohamed, acting chairman of HMC's Intensive Care Units, also addressed the press conference.Dr al-Khal said since the introduction of restrictions at the start of February, the combined efforts of the government and members of the community have succeeded in slowing the rate of increase for new Covid-19 cases in Qatar.

"However, we continue to see a significant number of new cases each day and every day people are becoming sick due to the Covid-19, with many requiring admissions to hospital to manage their symptoms and even admission into ICU for life-saving treatment," he observed.He said the emergence of new strains of the virus posed challenges to many countries, including those in the Middle East. "Qatar's strict quarantine policy for returning travellers enabled us to delay the introduction of new variants into this country for several months but we are now seeing positive Covid-19 cases in the region and in Qatar with the new variant known as B.1.1.7 (UK strain)," Dr al-Khal noted. "This new variant is much more contagious and spreads more easily between people than the existing strain and may be associated with increased severity of the disease."The good news is that the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines being used in Qatartarget="_blank"'>