A pop-up coronavirus clinic in Dubai is vaccinating about 5,000 people each day. The centre at Dubai Parks and Resorts was set up in January and is operated by Abu Dhabi Health Services (Seha). It is one of the largest inoculation centres in the country. "We have 200 nursing staff and we can bring in as many doctors as required," said Dr Mohammad Al Saeed, a general practitioner from Syria who joined the operation this year. “This site has been a major hub for vaccination in recent months. "We started with 600 vaccinations daily but we can now give around 5,000 doses." Visitors are scanned and registered by staff members before they proceed to the vaccination halls. These are divided into two areas. The first is for those who have an appointment for the Sinopharm vaccine and the second is for people who chose the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Appointments for the Sinopharm vaccine can be booked using the Seha mobile phone app. Appointments for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines can be made on the Dubai Health Authority website or app. The centre, which is open from 9am to 5pm, also accepts walk-ins, but they must register and pass a health assessment to confirm their eligibility. Those deemed to have high blood pressure or women who are pregnant will be denied the injection. All arrivals are checked for signs of the virus. Once a consent form is signed, the first vaccine dose is given and a SMS is sent to the person's registered mobile number to confirm a date for a second dose three weeks later. Thousands of people visit the resort's vaccination centre, built in a car park 20 minutes by road outside Dubai. The scene is far from the tourism buzz at the height of holiday season, when visitors would fly in for theme parks and rollercoasters. So far, more than 10 million vaccine doses have been given in the UAE. Most centres are run by Seha, the country's largest public health care provider. Freezers keep vaccines at the required temperature of about minus 80°C to ensure they are safe to use. “I have not had Covid-19, but I have seen how damaging it is,” Dr Al Saeed said. “We urge anyone eligible who is not yet vaccinated to sign up as soon as possible.” The UAE has one of the world’s best vaccine programmes. It is the second country to have administered the most Covid-19 vaccine doses per 100 people in the total population, according to Our World in Data, a project at the University of Oxford. This is counted as a single dose, and may not equal the total number of people vaccinated, depending on the specific dose regime.
