Cambodia is striving ahead with its vaccination campaign in almost all age sectors, from the age of three to adults aged 18 and above to keep the COVID-19 virus and its new variants at bay.

Towards this end, approximately 58,691 people have received the 5th dose of the vaccine since the campaign for the 5th dose was launched on June 9, 2022.

Since June 9 to June 25, 261,399 have received the fifth dose, encouraged by the Government to contain any new variants of the virus, especially sublineage of the Omicron variant of concern of COVID-19.

Overall, a total of 15,078,410 people have received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Of this number, 14, 377,340 have received their second dose, thus completing the full course of the two dose regime. This still leaves more than 700,00- people who have yet to complete their second dose despite the COVID-19 vaccination beginning on February 10, 2021.

As for the third dose, 9,435,373 have received the vaccine while 2,857,589 have received the 4th dose as of June 25.

Of the 16 million people identified in the 2019 census, 94.24 percent of the population have been vaccinated.

Four out of the five age groups have achieved more than 100 percent of the first dose while those in the age three to five years age group has reached 69.35 percent.

The current population of Cambodia is 17,175,161 as of Friday, June 24, 2022, based on Worldometer elaboration of the latest United Nations data.

Neighbouring Thailand has 181 recorded cases of Covid-19’s latest worrisome subvariants, BA.4 and BA.5, which are similar to the Delta variant and therefore potentially harmful to a patient’s lungs, according to the Department of Medical Sciences.

This makes it all the more important for the Ministry of Health to embark on a more targeted and aggressive approach to ensure all eligible in Cambodia are fully vaccinated to prevent a reoccurrence of the virus. Cambodia has been COVID-19 free since June 7, 2022.

• Tags: COVID-19 in Cambodia, COVID-19 vaccination campaigns