Leading the Way

The UAE is in a league of its own having achieved 100 per cent vaccination

The UAE reached another milestone recently as it registered a major victory against the Covid-19 pandemic. With 100 per cent of its eligible population having received at least one dose of the vaccine, the UAE became only the second country behind the British overseas territory of Gibraltar to achieve this remarkable feat.

As per the stats compiled by Our World in Data, 120 per cent of the people in Gibraltar have received a single dose in Gibraltar with the fully vaccinated population being more than 118 per cent. However, the population of Gibraltar is just over 33,000. Whereas, what makes the achievement made by the UAE all the more remarkable is the scope at which it was made as the population is more than 9.8 million people. This puts the country in an exclusive list, putting it in the top three countries in the vaccine administration rate, offering at least a dose to the public and in conducting PCR tests per 1,000 people.

This record was made due to a proactive policy by the government which reacted as soon as the Covid-19 vaccine was rolled out globally, becoming one of the earliest nations in the world to inoculate its residents and citizens free of cost with Chinese Sinopharm vaccine.

On the occasion of reaching this impressive milestone, the UAE’s Ministry of Health and Prevention (MoHAP) recently announced that as per the latest compiled stats, the total number of doses provided stood at 21.8 million with a distribution rate of 220.44 doses per 100 people.

“This is in line with the ministry’s plan to provide the Covid-19 vaccine to all members of society and efforts to reach acquired immunity resulting from the vaccination, which will help reduce the number of cases and control the Covid-19 virus,” the ministry said.

Till date, 90.18 per cent of the eligible population is fully vaccinated in the country. There has been no letup in the vaccination and screening drives which has led to a steep dip in the number of new cases.

Since December 2020, the UAE has administered more than 21.8 million doses as the country embarked on a nationwide inoculation campaign. The UAE is leading the global Covid-19 vaccination charts, according to data collected from more than 130 countries by the Our World in Data project at the University of Oxford. At second place is Cuba, where 89 per cent of people have had their first dose of a coronavirus vaccine. In third place are Singapore and Chile, where the figure is 88 per cent. In Cambodia the number is 85 per cent and South Korea it is 82 per cent. Spain is the first European country on the chart, with 81 per cent of its population having received one dose.