Ministry of Health on Wednesday allowed hospitals, health centers and private health clinics to purchase COVID-19 vaccines from the local agent or companies producing them after being licensed and approved by the ministry to provide vaccination service. In a statement, the ministry said that the permission was stated in the circular No. 5/2021 issued on wednesday through the Health Licenses Department, as they should complete the electronic connection with the electronic platform of the ministry before starting to provide the vaccination service.

The Ministry stressed the need for the data to match all the requirements of the automated COVID-19 vaccination at the Ministry of Health to issue vaccination certificates, indicating the need for hospitals, health centers and clinics to be located in a self-contained building and not shared with other treatment institutions and to have vaccination permits from the Health Licensing Department and the commitment to apply the precautionary measures recommended by the Ministry of Health.

 The ministry also stressed the need to stick to the standards, specifications and guidelines related to transporting, storing and giving the vaccines to the domestic medical sector issued by the producer and from the drug and food control sector. The Ministry affirmed that the service provider bears full responsibility for the accuracy of the data, ensuring its privacy, and following up on the vaccination dates for recipients with the responsibility to inform them via sms messages of their scheduled dates for taking doses.

Travel measures

Precautionary travel measures are still implemented on all people, including those who have received coronavirus vaccine, for the protection of all categories in the society, Ministry of Health (MoH) spokesman Abdullah Al-Sanad said on Tuesday.

Speaking at a news conference, Al-Sanad stressed that authorities are still taking swabs from the arrivals who are also subjected to quarantine for the same purpose. The implemented measures include also individuals who received the vaccine so as to avoid a possible transmission of the virus from outside Kuwait, he added.

The step also aims to avoid the arrival of any new strains of the coronavirus pandemic from outside Kuwait, he elaborated. Those who received the first or dual dosage of the vaccine should react to the Ministry’s link to help monitor any side effects which may occur like high temperature, headache or pain on the part injected with the vaccine, he said.

He pointed out that medical teams would deal with any data in this regard. Asked about a safe vaccine for children below 15 years, Al-Sanad said the available vaccine in Kuwait is Pfizer-BioNTech used for people from 16 and above.

Oxford vaccine is given to people aged 18-64, he stated. The sixth batch of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine will arrive in Kuwait next Sunday, said an official at the Health Ministry Wednesday.

Speaking to KUNA, Assistant Undersecretary for Drug and Food Control Dr Abdullah Al- Bader said that Kuwait was keen on battling the coronavirus (COVID-19) spread by reinforcing its national immunization campaign. The ministry supplies of the Pfizer-BioNTech is made in direct contract with the drug company, affirmed the official who stressed that it vaccination was necessary to rid the world from this health menace.

President of Kuwait Directorate General for Civil Aviation (DGCA) Sheikh Salman Sabah Al-Salem Al-Humoud Al-Sabah on Wednesday examined anti-covid health precautions for arrivals at Kuwait International Airport.

A group defending human rights in Myanmar is calling on the UN is to impose an embargo on the Southeast Asian country to stop its military from using weapons against the public.

“The international community must strongly sanction military officials and military-owned companies, and impose a global arms embargo,” said a statement by the Burma Human Rights Network (BHRN), using another name for Myanmar.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Kyaw Win, the group’s executive director, touted the effectiveness of a non-violent civil disobedience movement (or CDM for short) in the country’s current situation.

“At least 70% of government employees and workforce joined the CDM movement. So I think this is getting stronger and stronger every day,” he said. “We hope that one day this will severely cripple the military rule.”

He added that they learned from previous mistakes as in a 1988 uprising, when nationwide pro-democracy protests were held in Myanmar but ended up with a military crackdown.

“Every night, government troops and security forces are raiding employees’ residences and houses to arrest them to take them to their jobs,” he said about the current situation, and called on the international community to support the resistance of Myanmar’s people.

‘Targeting their own people’

Win said the first step they expect from the UN is to impose an embargo on Myanmar, adding that the country's military is using its weapons not to protect the sovereignty of the country but to commit genocide, war crimes, and crime against humanity.

“They are using them against their own people,” he added.

Adding that a few days ago a 16-year-old humanitarian worker was shot dead by snipers in Mandalay city, he asked: “How could they become so ruthless as to use a sniper to target his head in such a way?”

He called the shooting “uncivilized and cruel.”

“Also the military equipment or any technologies, any items that are converted or indirectly can be used in the military and the security forces, also should be banned,” he stressed.

“The UN should impose targeted sanctions on the military and economic interests of the military and their money in Singapore, in Vietnam, in China, in Asian countries, in Western countries as well.”

Telling how the people of Myanmar are “risking their life to stand up against the ruthless regime,” Win said they “desperately need support” from the international community and especially the UN.

Although Win said the people of Myanmar know there will be violence and crackdown, they will continue protesting.

‘Misled on Rohingya issue’

He also accused Myanmar’s military regime of misleading the international community by telling them they will bring back the Muslim Rohingya people, about a million of whom fled the country in response to a 2017 genocidal campaign.

“Look who they appointed to the government,” Win said.

“They appointed all the dangerous people, those who hate Muslims and were involved in anti-Muslim pogroms and killing of Muslims in 2012 and 2013. Now they’re taking high positions in the government in the military,” he stressed.

He said that people from different sides, including Muslims and the Rohingya, stand together against the military regime at a time of urgency.

He added: “There are many young people coming out with posters, saying ‘We’re sorry to the Rohingya, we regret that we didn't stand up with you’.”

He again urged the international community: “Please do not accept or recognize this military illegal government.”​​​​​​​

This week the Burmese Rohingya Community in the UK called on the international community to impose sanctions against Myanmar’s military and stand by the people of Myanmar who are resisting the military coup.

In a written statement this Tuesday, the Burmese Rohingya Organization UK said: “We support the General Strike on Monday 22/02/2021. We urgently call on military leaders to immediately end violence against protesters by police or military forces.”

Military takeover

Myanmar's military declared a state of emergency on Feb. 1, hours after detaining de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and senior members of the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD).

The coup took place hours before the country's new parliament was set to convene following November elections in which the NLD made sweeping gains.

The military claimed it launched the coup due to "election fraud" resulting in the NLD’s dominance.

Shortly after the Feb. 1 coup, the junta declared martial law imposing a nightly curfew and a ban on gatherings of five or more people.

However, the junta has failed to quell popular protests by the people and a civil disobedience campaign initiated by government officials against military rule./aa

Since its establishment in 2016, the Public Authority for Combating Corruption (Nazaha) has referred 10 directors working in the public services and infrastructure field to the Public Prosecution Office, on charges that varied between misusing public money, and cases of neglect.

There were 25 suspicions of corruption in the bodies concerned with infrastructure, of which the authority detected 12 suspicions, while it dealt with the other 13, following the acceptance of reports in different ways.

Five EU countries called on the bloc Wednesday to ensure funding to reinforce COVID-19 vaccine production and to adapt vaccination programs to new variants. 

A letter signed by the prime ministers of Spain, Belgium, Denmark, Lithuania and Poland calling for more production facilities was sent to European Council President Charles Michel and other EU leaders prior to an EU leaders summit to be held via videoconference from Feb. 25-26.

Noting the importance of working together with the European Commission to tackle the problems of production capacities, it said: "We need to work closely with all potential vaccine producers in Europe, boosting public-private partnerships across the entire value chain to increase R&D efforts, ramp-up and adapt supply capacity."

While EU countries, which started COVID-19 vaccination in December 2020, are far behind their targets so far, they are experiencing logistics, personnel and supply problems.

"We should be ready to look openly at the possible ways and the need to ensure funding to facilitate the efforts. The approach should reflect that we cannot afford to lose this battle," it said.

Stressing the urgency of reinforcement of the vaccine production capacities in Europe, it added: "We need to provide the right support to Europe-based producers in case unexpected problems emerge during the production process. Existing production facilities will need to be adapted."

The EU has so far received 40.7 million of the 106 million doses of vaccines it expects to obtain in the first quarter of the year. It has focused on vaccine production with 16 factories in the EU due to delays in vaccine delivery.

The EU had made agreements with six companies to receive approximately 2.3 billion vaccine doses.

The letter said the extraordinary EU summit this week comes at the right time.

“Europe's timely access to sufficient vaccine remains an unsolved challenge. In spite of the unprecedented speedy development of new high-quality vaccines, production difficulties are ongoing and lead to major delays," the letter said./aa