Georgian citizens aged 18 and older can now register to get vaccinated with Chinese Sinopharm vaccine

Georgian citizens over 18 years of age can now register to be vaccinated against Covid-19 with the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine.

Registration is now available via the portal www.moh.gov.ge, announced Georgia’s Minister of Health Ekaterine Tikaradze following the meeting of the Council on Immunization where the Chinese vaccine was discussed.

“It was decided that today, at 20:00, a portal where citizens aged 18 and older will be able to register for vaccination. The reason for this is that there are a number of important studies that show Sinopharm is a safe vaccine for citizens aged 18-60. Therefore, the council decided to trust the data and we give our citizens the opportunity to be vaccinated with this vaccine”, Ekaterina Tikaradze said.

The minister added that specially trained “vaccination officers” will now be going door to door to help citizens to register, as it has been determined that people often struggle to complete the registration process via the official portal.

As per the data of the National Center for Disease Control, 40,095 people have already been vaccinated against coronavirus in the country, 3622 of which have received both shots of the vaccine.

• Majority of Georgian population doesn’t want Covid-19 vaccine – NDI survey
• Georgian church stands by decision not to assist vaccination campaign

The Chinese Sinopharm vaccine has not yet been approved by the World Health Organization but has already obtained authorization from the Hungarian state regulator.

Despite this, at the beginning of April, 100,000 doses of Sinopharm were imported to Georgia.

Deputy Minister of Health Tamar Gabunia explained that the reason for importing the Chinese vaccine was the restriction on the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine for the population under the age of 55 as well as the worsening of the epidemiological situation in the country.

The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 has increased recently in Georgia. Over the past 24 hours, 1,578 new cases of COVID-19 have been detected in the country and 17 people have died, marking the highest death rate since December.