Maldives could soon offer Covid vaccine to tourists. What we know.

The Maldives is about to offer Covid vaccine to their visitors on arrival.
How is the country able to vaccinate both its population and tourists and when will it start ?
Here is what we know so far.

Maldives offer vaccines to tourists — Tourists who spend long holidays in Maldives might enjoy a Covid Vaccine on arrival.

The Maldives campaign for a safe travel continues. After the recent decision to lift the mandatory negative PCR test for all vaccinated travelers arriving in the country, the government plans to offer vaccine to their visitors

Maldives Minister of Tourism, Abdulla Mausoom, announced in an interview with CNBC that the Maldives plan to offer Covid vaccines to visitors as a boost for the destination.

Visit, Vaccinate, Vacation

The decision is part of Maldives global program called the 3V for ‘Visit, Vaccinate, Vacation” aimed to make shots available for tourists who come to Maldives.,
The measure will apply only once all Maldives residents are vaccinated.

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The Maldives vaccinate at a fast pace. The country, which mostly relies on tourism, makes safety a safety a top priority.
The government has already vaccinated 90% of the workers who directly work with tourists.

More about Covid-19 in Maldives

When will Maldives vaccination campaign for tourists start ?

Maldives Tourist vaccination campaign will only start when the entire population is vaccinated. Started at the beginning of February 2021, the campaign has already reached 53% of the local population which counts approximately 530 00 inhabitants.
At this pace, tourists should start to be vaccinated in 2 or 3 months if nothing comes to interrupt the process.

How are the Maldives able to vaccinate their tourists too ?

For some countries where Covid-19 vaccines are rare, this vaccination campaign for tourists might sound incredible. How is that possible ?

The Maldives have received a lot of vaccine doses from China and India as donations.

UNICEF and WHO have also contributed to the country stocks by providing doses and syringes as part of the COVAX global action against Covid-19 around the world. The Minister announced tat more doses are ordered to Singapore.

Besides, the country is also relatively small with half a million inhabitants only.

COVID-19 syringes on their way to Maldives

COVID-19 syringes sent to Maldives by UNICEF — © UNICEF/Ruel Pableo

Will the vaccine be free and will every tourist get it ?

It is yet not known if the vaccine doses will be free for tourists and as per today, it is safe to say that not all tourists will receive it. Considering that the vaccines that Maldives have are mostly administered in 2 doses, a minimum of 2 week stay ( 17 days sounds safer ) will be necessary for a tourist to be eligible.

Note : this might change according to potential upcoming protocols and type of vaccine restrictions ( AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson’s recently got halted in several countries across the globe ).
A single dose type could eventually replace them, however this category of vaccine does not constitute the main stock in Maldives. It could change. We will see.

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Which types of vaccines do the Maldives have ?

The Maldives have recently received doses of Pfizer, following the AstraZeneca givien by WHO and India. The country also holds Sinopharm vaccines from China which are proven to barely reach 51% of efficiency.