Cambodia reaches the 70% Covid-19 vaccination milestone

PHNOM PENH, Sept. 5 (Xinhua): Cambodia has administered at least one shot of a Covid-19 vaccine to almost 11.2 million eligible people, or 70 per cent of the kingdom's 16-million population, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Health (MoH) said on Sunday.

Of them, 8.87 million people, or 55 per cent, have received both required doses and 660,292 have received a third dose or booster dose, MoH's secretary of state and spokeswoman Or Vandine said in a report.

"As of Sept. 4, some 95.3 percent of the 10 million targeted adults and 84.4 percent of the nearly 2 million targeted adolescents aged 12-17 had taken at least one vaccine dose," she said.

The Southeast Asian nation began a Covid-19 vaccination drive in February, targeting to inoculate approximately 12 million people, or 75 percent of the total population, by the end of this year in order to build herd immunity.

Most of the vaccines used in the country's immunization program are China's Sinovac and Sinopharm.

According to the Chinese Embassy in Cambodia, so far, China has provided 26.8 million vaccine doses to Cambodia, of which 4.3 million doses are humanitarian donations.

The United Nations in Cambodia said last month that Cambodia has one of the highest percentages of COVID-19 vaccination among its adult population in the World Health Organisation (WHO) Western Pacific Region.

Meanwhile, the country reported 461 new Covid-19 cases, including 146 imported on Sunday, pushing the national total caseload to 95,300, the MoH said, adding that seven more fatalities were confirmed, bringing the death toll to 1,957.

Additional 411 patients recovered, taking the total number of recoveries to 90,684, the MoH added. - Xinhua