Dubai leader Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum said Tuesday that he had won an experimental coronavirus vaccine, fitting the last united Arab Emirates official to participate in the trials.
Two vaccines are recently undergoing third-phase trials in the United Arab Emirates, one produced through chinese drug Sinopharm and Russian Sputnik-V, which is named after the Soviet-era satellite.
“While receiving the COVID-19 vaccine today,” Sheikh Mohammed subtitled a photo of himself that he posted on Twitter with his sleeve rolled up, while a fitness team with a complete protective device administered the injection.
“We wish everyone protection and health, and we are proud of our groups that have worked tirelessly to make the vaccine in the United Arab Emirates,” he said, without specifying what vaccine he took.
Chinese pharmaceutical giant Sinopharm initiated the third phase of covid-19 vaccine trials in the United Arab Emirates in July and Emirati officials say the effects have been positive.
Last month, the government announced that the UAE had also approved clinical trials of Sputnik V of Russia, the first Middle Eastern country to do so.
Sheikh Mohammed is also Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates, a collection of seven emirates that has recorded more than 136,000 coronavirus cases, totaling 503 deaths.
Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan and Deputy Prime Minister Sheikh Saif bin Zayed Al-Nahyan took the experimental vaccine.
In September, Bahrain that Crown Prince Salman had participated in third-stage trials of the Sinopharm vaccine.
Dozens of companies, from biotech startups to giant pharmaceutical companies, are scrambling to expand an effective Covid-19 vaccine.
The World Health Organization has met “vaccine candidates” at the clinical trial stage.
Ten of them are at the peak of “phase three” complexity, testing the effectiveness of a vaccine on a giant scale, tens of thousands of people on multiple continents.