Doha: Stressing the importance of vaccination and booster doses, Dr Abdullatif Al Khal, Chair of the National Health Strategic Group on COVID-19 and Head of Infectious Diseases at Hamad Medical Corporation explained that high level of immunity offered by vaccines can be seen from the patients experiencing most severe symptoms.
"The high level of immunity offered by the vaccines is obvious when it comes to COVID-19 patients who are experiencing the most severe symptoms. There have sadly been seven recent deaths in Qatar due to COVID-19 and none of these individuals had received any of their COVID-19 vaccine doses. Additionally, almost all patients admitted to intensive care units are either unvaccinated or had their second dose of the vaccine more than 6 months ago. It is noteworthy that there have been almost no ICU admissions among those who received their booster dose," said Dr Al Khal.
Dr. Al Khal stated that vaccines give stronger and longer-lasting immunity than natural infection does and that anyone who had their second vaccine dose more than 6 months ago is eligible for the booster vaccine.
He explained that the rollout of booster doses is progressing at a good pace and said that following the administration of more than 368,000 booster vaccine doses in Qatar, only a limited number of people have reported modest side effects including low-grade fever, mild headache, fatigue, and soreness at the injection site, which is similar to the side effects following the second dose of the vaccine. He confirmed that no serious side effects have been reported to MOPH.
