Qatar has spared no effort in tackling the COVID-19 crisis to the best of its abilities.
Since the onset of COVID-19, the country has dedicated efforts to ensure the highest standards of monitoring, detection, and management of the infection, keeping the health and wellbeing of the population as a top priority.
As the country continues its fight against the virus, the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) earlier confirmed that it had inked an agreement with Pfizer and BioNTech to supply Qatar with their BNT162 mRNA-based candidate vaccine against Sars-CoV-2.
On October 25, the Ministry revealed that it has locked another deal with a second pharmaceutical company, Moderna, a Massachusetts-based biotech company, to get the COVID-19 vaccine as soon as it is approved and released for global use.
In a tweet, The MoPH said that the announcement by Pfizer and BioNtech very promising as it shows that great progress is being made on the development and testing of a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine.
UPDATE: We are proud to announce, along with @BioNTech_Group, that our mRNA-based #vaccine candidate has, at an interim analysis, demonstrated initial evidence of efficacy against #COVID19 in participants without prior evidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection.
— Pfizer Inc. (@pfizer) November 9, 2020
Dr. Abdullatif Al Khal, Chair of the National Health Strategic Group on COVID-19 and Head of Infectious Diseases at Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) said, “We have been working with Pfizer and BioNTech since the summer and they are confident that if their vaccine gets the necessary regulatory approval Qatar will be able to receive an initial quantity of vaccines by the end of this year or very early in 2021.”
The Ministry of Public Health considers the announcement by Pfizer and BioNtech very promising as it shows that great progress is being made on the development and testing of a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine”. pic.twitter.com/ZbJm9cNZXb
— وزارة الصحة العامة (@MOPHQatar) November 10, 2020
“Pfizer and BioNtech stated that preliminary analysis on their vaccine shows it can prevent more than 90 percent of people from getting COVID-19 which is better than we hoped for or expected. This news gives us good reason to be optimistic that life can return towards normal sooner rather than later, but it is important to note that these are the initial results of the study and additional results of the ongoing clinical trials are required to confirm the vaccine’s effectiveness.”
