Cambodia inches closer to achieving herd immunity with 8,930,272 people being vaccinated

Cambodia inches closer to achieving herd immunity with 8,930,272 people being vaccinated

Cambodia has up to 14 August 2021, vaccinated up to 8,930,272 out of the initial 10 million people slated to be vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus.

Vaccinations began on 10 February 2021 and took an added impetus during the first lockdown on May 1 of this year. Since then, close to a million per week have been successfully vaccinated.

Simultaneously, vaccination of children aged between 12 and 17 also kicked off on August 1 while the administration of a 3rd booster dose of AstraZeneca vaccine began on August 8.

To date, up to August 14, 83.36 percent of the targeted population have been vaccinated while 7.11 million have been fully vaccinated, representing more than 71 percent of the initially targeted 10 million people.

A total of 55.36 percent of Cambodia’s estimated 16 million plus population have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and the revised target of more than 80 percent of the people to be inoculated is on schedule to be achieved by November this year, months ahead of schedule.

In addition, the administration of a 3rd booster dose of AstraZeneca vaccines to front line personnel in seven provinces bordering Thailand has reached more than 206,000 as of the same date.

More than 560,000 people living in outlying areas have also received their one shot Jansen’s Johnson & Johnson vaccine which requires just a single dose to attain immunity.

The vaccination rate per 100 people of the population has reached almost 51.5 percent.

The Delta variant is more contagious: The Delta variant is highly contagious, more than 2x as contagious as previous variants.

Some data suggest the Delta variant might cause more severe illness than previous strains in unvaccinated persons. In two different studies from Canada and Scotland, patients infected with the Delta variant were more likely to be hospitalized than patients infected with Alpha or the original virus strains.

Unvaccinated people remain the greatest concern: Although breakthrough infections happen much less often than infections in unvaccinated people, individuals infected with the Delta variant, including fully vaccinated people with symptomatic breakthrough infections, can transmit it to others. CDC is continuing to assess data on whether fully vaccinated people with asymptomatic breakthrough infections can transmit. However, the greatest risk of transmission is among unvaccinated people who are much more likely to contract, and therefore transmit the virus. Khmer Times