Over 100,000 sign up for Covid vaccine in Saudi on Day 1 of registration

Over 100,000 people in Saudi Arabia have signed up for the coronavirus vaccination on the opening day of vaccination registration, the Saudi Health Ministry said.

"Up until now, 100,546 people have signed up through the application on... smartphones to receive the coronavirus vaccine," the ministry said in a statement.

On Tuesday, the Saudi Ministry of Health announced the beginning of registration for the coronavirus vaccination. The vaccine will primarily be available to people over 65, those at risk of becoming infected as a result of their professional activities, or those with chronic diseases.

At the end of last week, the Saudi Food and Drug Authority approved the registration and use of a vaccine against the new coronavirus produced by the American company Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech. The first batches of the vaccine have already been received by the kingdom.

In recent months, Saudi Arabia has managed to significantly reduce the increase in the number of coronavirus cases, bringing them to just over 200 per day. Since the beginning of the pandemic, more than 360,000 people have gone through Covid-19 in the kingdom, with nearly 351,000 recoveries and over 6,000 deaths.