Maldives starts administering Covishield second dose on appointment basis

Health Protection Agency (HPA) has restarted administering second dose of Covishield Covid-19 vaccine but on appointment basis.

In an announcement made last night, the agency said the vaccines will be provided in the order that received the first dose. As such, people that had received the first dose in February but had yet not received the second dose will be prioritised.

Unlike before where walk in vaccine shots were provided, the second dose of the Covishield will be administered on appointment basis only. HPA will start setting up appointments via phone calls starting today. They encourage everyone to make it to their appointments on time to get their required shot.

Maldives started vaccinating against COVID-19 on February 1, with the Covishield vaccines made in SERUM Institute, India. However, due to vaccine shortages, administering the second dose of the Covishield was halted on May 4.

HPA reminds everyone going to receive the second shot to bring their ID cards or another identifying document in addition to the vaccine card provided when they received their first dose.

In addition to Covishield, Sinopharm from China and Pfizer, developed by the German company BioNTech.

So far 317,244 people have received the first dose of the vaccine while the 191,725 people have received the second dose.