UAE has authorised the emergency use of the COVID-19 vaccine, making it available to the region’s first line defence workers, minister of health and prevention in UAE, Abdul Rahman bin Mohammad bin Nasser Al Owais announced.
Al Owais stressed that the emergency use of the vaccine is fully compatible with the regulations and laws that allow a faster review of licensing procedures, and has been approved to protect UAE’s frontline heroes from any danger that they may be exposed to due to the nature of their work, state-run news agency Wam reported.
This announcement was made at the government’s media briefing which addresses all developments related to the pandemic.
Al Owais confirmed that the UAE’s leadership has taken an integrated set of wise decisions to deal with the pandemic since the beginning of its spread in the country and has made all efforts to support the health sector by providing all resources needed, while supporting scientific progress to find effective and definitive solutions.
In addition, Al Owais confirmed that the results from the preclinical study – first and second phase trials – indicate that the vaccine is safe and effective. The process was carried out under the strict supervision of medical teams.
During the briefing, the official spokesperson for the UAE government, Dr Omar Al-Hammadi announced that the UAE is still at the forefront of countries around the world in the number of total examinations in relation to the population; surpassing eight million tests since the start of the pandemic.
Head of the national clinical committe for coronavirus, Dr Nawal Al-Kaabi confirmed that the evaluation of the vaccine for emergency use was based on the criteria for qualifying approvals.
She added that the evaluation was carried out for emergency use, taking into account the target groups, product characteristics, preclinical and clinical study data, population study and all relevant available scientific evidence, stressing that the health authorities, in coordination with the vaccine’s developers, followed all measures to control the quality, safety and effectiveness of the program.
