BATTAMBANG: While speaking at the inauguration ceremony of the new section of National Road No. 5 in Battambang province on Monday morning, Prime Minister Hun Sen stated that the recently received Covid-19 Pfizer vaccines from Australia will be available to all citizens across the country, but will only be administered from the capital city, Phnom Penh, because this vaccine requires a strong refrigeration system and cannot be shipped out to other provinces that lack the provisions to properly store the vaccine.

He stressed that more than 2 million doses of Pfizer vaccines will be available to people from all the different provinces in Cambodia even though it is only being administered in Phnom Penh, and he called all those who wished to receive the Pfizer vaccine to come and receive it in the capital city.

"The Pfizer vaccine will be given to all citizens as a booster dose, and people in the provinces who want to get this vaccine, please come and get vaccinated in Phnom Penh because we are all Cambodian,” he said.

The Prime Minister also stated that he has placed an order to purchase an additional 5 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines for the booster program, while the current vaccine stock in the country is at about 10 million doses. He said that having this robust vaccine stock will encourage people to get vaccinated, and will ensure that Cambodians do not lack vaccines.

He further called on all provinces to make every effort to vaccinate everyone against Covid-19 and receive their third booster dose as soon as possible, as the new Covid-19 variant, Omicron, has entered the community and there is no choice but to push for timely vaccinations.

The Prime Minister confirmed that he would be receiving his Pfizer booster dose this coming Friday, 14 January, as he will be traveling soon to Dubai. He also spoke about the arrangement of extra allowances to be given to doctors who provide Covid-19 vaccines, which will be based on the number of vaccines they have administered.

As of Sunday, 9 January, 2022, a total of 14,282,788 people all across Cambodia have been vaccinated against Covid-19.

^{PHOTO: EAC NEWS}