By Gopal Sharma
KATHMANDU (Reuters) – Bhutan started giving booster shots of the COVID-19 vaccine to senior citizens and priority groups as the Himalayan kingdom counters the spread of the Omicron variant of coronavirus, health ministry officials said on Friday.
Those aged 65 and older, overseas travellers, health workers, sufferers from chronic medical woes, and all adults living in “high risk” areas were eligible, the officials said.
“Bhutan becomes the first country in the South Asian region to administer booster doses,” public service broadcaster BBS said in a report.
The Kuensel newspaper said Bhutan, with a vaccine stock exceeding 250,000 doses, planned to inoculate more than 228,000 people in a week.
“As we did for the second dose, mix and match is recommended even for the booster, given its higher efficacy,” the paper quoted Sonam Wangchuk, an official of the Royal Centre for Disease Control, as saying.
The nation of about 750,000 people has vaccinated more than 93 percent of people older than 12 with a second vaccine dose.
Nestled between China and India, Bhutan has been able to slow the spread of the virus through measures such as early screening and monitoring at entry points, testing and sealing its borders.
Its deaths rank among the world’s lowest, with just three people dying since the pandemic began. Its tally of infections stand at 2,659, government data shows.
(Reporting by Gopal Sharma; Editing by Rupam Jain and Clarence Fernandez)
