Travellers ‘should be vaccinated’ before flying abroad
People planning on flying abroad this summer should ensure they are vaccinated first, a top government official said.
Dr Farida Al Hosani, spokeswoman for the health sector, said the public should receive both doses of a vaccine before leaving the country.
She urged everyone to be immunised “for their own safety” and to boost the country’s fight against Covid-19.
She also cautioned people against mixing their inoculations and revealed that more vaccines would be made available in Abu Dhabi.
Dr Al Hosani said anyone planning to go abroad this summer should “consider the risks” and “carefully select their destination”.
“They must take the vaccine,” she told The National.
“But it is not just travellers, everyone must get the vaccine regardless of whether they are travelling or not. It is for their own safety.”
Even when vaccinated, people should carefully select their holiday destination to avoid putting themselves and family members at undue risk.
“Most important is to study the country you are going to well. Make sure they [country of destination] don’t have high Covid infection rates,” Dr Al Hosani said.
“It might be risky for them and their families and also it might be difficult being there because they may face lockdowns and they may not be able to return, so travellers need to take a full ‘Covid review’ of their destination country.
“Also, avoid countries that have low health infrastructures, don’t wear masks and have low testing rates because those practices might impact them.
“If they go to countries that don’t have social distancing and have low vaccination rates then it means that it is risky for them to choose this destination.”
Dr Al Hosani advised people against taking a first dose from one vaccine maker before switching to another.
“They should stick to the one vaccine and currently there is not enough data regarding the safety of interchanging vaccines.”
Dr Al Hosani said similar recommendations are followed worldwide owing to a lack of evidence.
Currently, she said, “most regulatory countries are warning about the mixing of vaccines”.
Dr Al Hosani said Abu Dhabi will offer more vaccines to the public soon.
China’s Sinopharm vaccine was approved in December, followed by Pfizer-BioNTech last week.
“We will continue to have more than one option in the upcoming period,” she said.
“We believe that there is no best one and that it is important to provide options to the community to enhance the uptake.
“The list of approved vaccines is increasing globally and the UAE always tries to bring the best for its people, so always there will be a review of what is the latest updates and [we will] make sure we upgrade our programmes.”
Dr Al Hosani said she had great confidence in the efficacy of the Sinopharm vaccine.
The vaccine was found to be 93 per cent effective in preventing hospital admissions and 95 per cent effective against admission to intensive care, according to research carried out by Abu Dhabi Public Health Centre.
“We have seen its impact and a huge reduction in the number of hospital admissions in vaccinated individuals and unfortunately what we currently are seeing is that most of the people in ICUs have not been vaccinated,” she said.
The UAE reported 2,094 new cases and 1,900 recoveries yesterday.
Officials said that five people died.
The country has recorded 514,591 cases, 495,589 recoveries and 1,578 deaths since the first Covid-19 case was detected in the Emirates on January 29 last year.