EARLY birds who register for Covid-19 vaccines will get to choose between the two available options in the country – Sinopharm, or Pfizer/BioNTech.

“Vaccination is optional and target groups for Covid-19 vaccines from Sinopharm and Pfizer are adults aged 18 years and over,” said National Taskforce for Combating Coronavirus (Covid-19) monitoring committee head Lt Col Dr Manaf Al Qahtani.

Priority will be given to those who register early.

“Those who were infected with the virus earlier can also take the vaccine, ideally 90 days after the infection,” he said.

He was speaking at an online Press conference yesterday, alongside Health Ministry Under-Secretary Dr Waleed Al Manea, NHRA chief executive Dr Mariam Al Jalahma and National Taskforce for Combating Coronavirus member and Salmaniya Medical Complex Infectious and Internal Diseases Consultant Dr Jameela Al Salman.

Dr Al Qahtani also allayed fears over side effects of these vaccines, assuring that the doses have been approved after extensive studies on large number of volunteers around the world.

He said while Sinopharm was a traditional inactive vaccine – one consisting of virus particles, bacteria, or other pathogens that have been grown in culture and then lose its disease producing capacity – Pfizer was a modern mRNA vaccine. It uses a man-made copy of a natural chemical called messenger RNA (mRNA) to produce an immune response.

“In general, vaccines are safe and their benefit outweighs some of their side effects,” Dr Al Qahtani said.

“The inactivated vaccine follows the traditional method of manufacture, and has proven effective for many years. The mRNA vaccine is a modern, advanced technology that has proven effective for five years and has been tried with great success in several countries,” he said.

Two separate doses of the vaccines are injected into the muscle of the arm, the second 21 days after the first. Dr Al Jalahma said Sinopharm vaccine, tested on 42,299 volunteers including those in Bahrain, had shown 86pc efficiency, while Pfizer, tested on 43,548 volunteers globally, proved 95pc efficient.

“WHO adopts a 50pc efficacy rate as acceptable to ensure the effectiveness of a vaccine,” she said.

Addressing claims of approval of vaccines being “accelerated”, she said the manufacturing process was fast-tracked without neglecting the quality.