UAE: 28,599 Covid vaccine doses administered in 24 hours

The UAE has administered 28,599 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine in the past 24 hours.

The country's Ministry of Health and Prevention (MoHAP) said the total doses administered now stand at 22.2 million.

This takes the rate of doses to 224.82 doses per 100 people.

Preliminary evidence indicates that Covid-19 vaccines may be less effective against infection and transmission linked to the Omicron coronavirus variant, which also carries a higher risk of reinfection, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday.

The WHO, in its weekly epidemiological update, said that more data was needed to better understand the extent to which Omicron may evade immunity derived from either vaccines or previous infection.

All three US-authorised Covid-19 vaccines appear to be significantly less protective against the newly-detected Omicron variant of the coronavirus in laboratory testing, but a booster dose likely restores most of the protection, according to a study released on Tuesday.

The study from researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Harvard and MIT that has not yet been peer reviewed tested blood from people who received the Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines against a pseudovirus engineered to resemble the Omicron variant.

The researchers found "low to absent" antibody neutralisation of the variant from the regular regimens of all three vaccines - two shots of the Moderna or Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines or one of J&J's single-dose vaccine.