Bhutan vaccinates 90% adult population, becomes a beacon of hope
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Bhutan, tiny Himalayan kingdom, has fully vaccinated 90% of its eligible adult population with COVID-19 vaccine shots in a week, said UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) on Tuesday. It is being called a 'beacon of hope' for countries struggling with coronavirus. The campaign for inoculating the second dose of vaccine had begun on July 20. In just a week, 90% of the population had got their shots
Being called a 'beacon of hope' for countries struggling with coronavirus, Bhutan, tiny Himalayan kingdom, has fully vaccinated 90% of its eligible adult population with COVID-19 vaccine shots in a week, said UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) on Tuesday.
The feat is being lauded as a 'success story' by many. The campaign for inoculating the second dose of vaccine had begun on July 20. In just a week, 90% of the population had got their shots.
The campaign involved months of preparation, such as setting up of cold chain storage facilities in inaccessible health clinics, deploying helicopters to deliver jabs to remote locations and deploying an army of volunteers for distribution of the vaccines along mountain footpaths.
Out of an eligible population of 530,000 people, around 480,000 have been vaccinated by Tuesday, said UNICEF's Bhutan representative Will Parks from the capital Thimphu.
Parks added, it was "arguably the fastest vaccination campaign to be executed during a pandemic."
During its campaign for first dose of vaccine in March and April, Bhutan administered around 500,000 AstraZeneca vaccines, donated by India. For the second dose, Bhutan got 500,000 Moderna jabs from the United States through COVAX vaccine sharing programme while Denmark donated 250,000 doses of AstraZeneca.