Bahrain Offers Pfizer-BioNTech Boosters to Those Previously Vaccinated with Chinese Vaccine
Voice of America
Just six months after receiving two shots of China’s Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine, some people in Bahrain are being offered booster doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
The decision to mix vaccines comes as the Gulf state is experiencing a wave of virus infections despite having a very high per capita vaccination rate. The booster is being recommended for people who are over 50, obese or have weakened immune systems. Waleed Khalifa Al Manea, Bahrain’s undersecretary of health, told The Wall Street Journal that Sinopharm accounted for 60% of vaccinations in the country and that it offered high levels of protection. He said 90% of those being hospitalized in the current wave had not been vaccinated.Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024. Fire rages following an Israeli strike on an area designated for displaced Palestinians, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, in this still picture taken from a video, May 26, 2024. Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024. A member of the bomb squad of the Israeli police collects debris after a rocket fired by Palestinian militants struck in the Israeli city of Herzliya on May 26, 2024.
Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili, right, and Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, left, leave a podium after marking Independence Day in Tbilisi, Georgia, May 26, 2024. Demonstrators with Georgian national and EU flags rally during an opposition protest against a foreign influence bill as they mark their country's Independence Day, in the center of in Tbilisi, Georgia, May 26, 2024.