Dr Nawal Al Kaabi, chairwoman of the National Covid-19 Clinical Management Committee, and technology firm G42 laid forward major developments to look forward to in coming months. These are:

• The Sinopharm vaccine manufacture in the Emirates by G42 and various partners
• Plan to achieve herd immunity by later this year with covering of up to 70% of the population
• Further investigation into new Coronavirus strains and vaccine ability to fight them
• Long term immunity studying after administration of two vaccine shots
• Probe of whether vaccine is suitable for children
• Campaign to ensure volunteers who were given a placebo during the Phase 3 trial get vaccinated
• Vaccine will be free and voluntary, but few companies are expected to insist on employees being vaccinated
• Phase 3 trial analysis highlighting that found the vaccine to be 100% effective at preventing serious symptoms of Covid-19

“We are in advanced stages of discussion with our key strategic partners and are happy to announce that local manufacturing of the vaccine will be done in the UAE,” said Ashish Koshy, chief executive of G42 Healthcare.

He said the number of vaccine doses that van be locally produced is still being explored, but these would augment already secured Sinopharm vaccine. On Tuesday, China National Biotec Group –Sinopharm division that created the vaccine – confirmed that till now it had delivered three million Covid-19 vaccine doses to the UAE.

“The goal is to be self-sufficient and to ensure that manufacturing can be done from A to Z locally,” Mr Koshy added.

The hope is that it would lead to at least 70% of population to be vaccinated, leading to achievement of ‘herd immunity’, specially as number of cases are decreasing in the country. A Christmas and New Year spike of cases that saw near 2,000 cases for four days has reinforced the need for the vaccination as soon as possible.

Dr Al Kaabi, who is also principle investigator of the Sinopharm Phase 3 trial in Abu Dhabi and chief medical officer at Sheikh Khalifa Medical City, said. “It is hard to determine what percentage of the population needs to vaccinated to achieve herd immunity but our hope is more than 70%.”

Last week, Sinopharm vaccine’s efficacy was announced to be 79% in final stage trials. That was lower than the phase 3 efficacy announced as 86% by the UAE, participated by 31,000 people. But it was still over the threshold limit of approval.

Dr. Al Kaabi said, “As an infectious disease expert, I see no difference. Both are accurate and both have shown that it has a 100% protection when it comes to severe cases - and this the most important in a pandemic. We need to prevent severe disease and hospitalization.”

Officials will next turn to the project’s research stage. During this focus will be on understanding more about the vaccine’s long-term effectiveness and if it would continue beyond six months. Like a seasonal flu vaccine, that must be taken each year.

Dr Nawal Al Kaabi said, “There will be a lot of mutations and variants but, since we are using an inactivated virus, then the vaccine is less likely to be affected by the new strain. But to confirm we are doing further testing.”

All the officials extended appreciation and lauded the efforts of all volunteers who participated in Abu Dhabi's Sinopharm trials. As part of the vaccine trial, many participants were given placebo.

Dr Walid Zaher, chief research officer and vaccine project leader at G42 Healthcare, said that efforts are under way to ensure all placebo receiving volunteers are given the approved vaccine. “Currently there are ongoing efforts to find a solution towards the volunteers, especially the placebo volunteers, and their right to be protected during a pandemic. The goal is to vaccinate them while at the same time not compromising the clinical trials of not only Sinopharm, but the other manufacturers as well,” he said.