Makkah’s first coronavirus vaccine centre set to open this week

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The first vaccine centre is set to open in the holy city of Makkah

Coronavirus vaccine centres have opened up in four locations within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. These are in Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam and Madinah. This week, the first vaccine centre in Makkah will be opened, as reported by the Saudi Gazette.

first covid 19 vaccine centre to be located in Makkah

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KAMC chosen as the location of the vaccine centre

The location for the new vaccine centre is at King Abdullah Medical City (KAMC), a key non-for-profit medical facility. The KAMC has been praised for it’s use of digital apps during their covid response, by the Zawya news outlet and others.

The vaccine which was approved by the Kingdom was the Pfizer/ BioNTech vaccine, the same one which was first rolled out in the UK.

medical equipment used to administer the vaccine

Photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich from Pexels

Storage facilities have been prepared for the vaccine

The new coronavirus vaccine centre in Makkah has been prepared with facilities to allow administration of the coronavirus vaccine. This includes refrigerators that allow proper storage of the vaccine which needs to be kept at a certain temperature, otherwise it will degrade. The Gov.uk’s website states that the vaccine must be stored at a temperature between -80 °C and -60 °C. Stored like this, it has a shelf life of about 6 months.

The opening of the Makkan vaccine centre is another step towards ensuring the safety of pilgrims to the haramain.

Coronavirus infection rate in Saudi Arabia

In the last 24 hours, there have been 214 new cases of covid-19 infection and 188 new recoveries from the virus. 4 deaths have also been reported due to the coronavirus.

The region with highest infection rate is Riyadh, which reported 88 cases. Makkah reported 37 cases and in Madinah, there were 10 cases of covid-19 infection. Overall, there has been an increase in cases over the past few days.

By Nasria Begum