The UAE's health ministry has announced that all eligible citizens and residents in the country can once again receive a Covid-19 vaccine free of charge. Yesterday's development comes after a six-week drive to inoculate the most vulnerable in society, which meant a temporary hold on the mass inoculation campaign. With almost 73 per cent of at-risk people now vaccinated, and more than half of the entire target population, authorities are encouraging the general public to receive doses of the vaccine.
On Saturday, Dr Sultan Al Jaber, Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology, said this success was down to effective leadership and the "tremendous" efforts of the many people involved in rolling out the programme. For months, the UAE has had the world’s second-highest vaccination rate for every 100 people, having administered almost 7.2 million doses in total.
The countries with the most successful inoculation drives appear to have adopted a few common strategies. Both the UAE and Israel, which currently leads global vaccination tables, have benefited from the efficiency of advanced and digitised healthcare systems. They also embraced bolder procurement policies, placing early orders on doses as soon as they deemed it safe to do so.
The EU, in contrast, despite being one of the most powerful and sophisticated trading blocs on the planet, continues to suffer from a lumbering and often contradictory strategy. In a scramble to improve the situation, EU policymakers have threatened to impose export controls on vaccines – a particularly draconian move for a political entity that contains some of the world's leading free market economies. There is also increasing concern about vaccine hesitancy among the European public. A December study found that just 40 per cent of French nationals said they would get inoculated. Recently, some EU member states suspended using the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, after sparse and ultimately flawed evidence that it increased the risk of blood clots. Medics now worry that this knee-jerk reaction, which occurred in the context of a political fight between the EU and UK over the vaccine's manufacturer, has eroded public trust in science even further.
Strain on global supply chains and the growing scarcity of resources are also affecting efforts across the world, even in countries that have so far been successful. The UK – another global leader – is being forced to slow down its programme in April, after an Indian manufacturer raised concerns about a lack of raw materials, which it attributes to US export bans.
Chain reactions of this kind are sign of global challenges to come. Extensive public vaccination campaigns of the kind needed to beat Covid-19, even in the most advanced societies, are not easy. And globally, vaccination remains a distant prospect for the vast majority around the world. The UAE has made it a priority to keep people safe and healthy in order to emerge from this crisis. For residents of the Emirates, who are among the few lucky enough to be in reach of a dose, this privilege is one more reason to book yourself in.
