‘Challenges ahead as people start returning, kids go back to schools’

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KUWAIT CITY, Aug 17: While several health sources confirmed the Ministry of Health intends to count the number of people due for the third dose of the Pfizer vaccine against the Corona virus – the elderly, people with chronic diseases and the immunodeficiency patients — Minister of Health Sheikh Dr. Basil Al-Sabah talked of many future challenges which will face the health sector in the coming days and said the health sector must be prepared particularly in the face of people returning to the country and children going back to schools. He also said a detailed plan will be in place to confront infection among schoolchildren.

The Minister said this following an inspection tour of the Farwaniya region accompanied by the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Health, Dr. Mustafa Reda. During the tour Minister Al-Sabah was briefed on the progress of work inside the Farwaniya Hospital in the presence of the health director of the region, Dr. Walid Al- Busairi, director of the hospital, Dr. Muhammad Al-Rashidi, the heads of departments and the (Covid-19) team. Minister Al-Sabah also discussed the mechanism of raising the pace of vaccination and the completion of engineering projects at the hospital, as well as cooperation and solidarity to overcome the crisis, while at the same time praising the role of medical and administrative staff in dealing with the pandemic.

For her part, the general consultant for surgery at the Mubarak Al-Kabir Hospital, Dr. Fatima Khaja, in a televised interview yesterday, said that the level of immunity gradually decreases six months after receiving the second dose of vaccines against the Covid-19 virus and pointed out the booster doses will provide a complete protection cover for the virus especially in the face of the Delta mutant, which has the ability to spread and transmit three times more the normal virus, so Pfizer offered to give a third booster dose to the groups most at risk of infection. Dr Khaja explained the groups most vulnerable to infection with the virus are those who suffer from immunodeficiency and some severe immune diseases, and therefore antibodies and immune memory are lower compared to healthy people, and therefore the effectiveness of the vaccine for this group is 59 to 70 percent, while it rises in healthy people to 95 percent. The preventive health doctor, Dr. Ehab Abdel-Ghani said the booster dose increases the antibodies and the strengthens the immune system’s control over the disease in case of infection, pointing out that the defensive line of the immune system is stronger in light of the booster dose, so it was approved by some producing companies, and that it will often become a preliminary dose to an annual dose of the vaccine. By Marwa Al-Bahrawi Al-Seyassah/Arab Times Staff

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