Dubai is offering the Pfizer vaccine to residents for free in addition to China’s Sinopharm shot

The United Arab Emirates’ commercial capital Dubai is making the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine available to its residents for free as of Wednesday, its government has announced.

The news comes after the UAE began offering the Chinese-developed Sinopharm vaccine earlier this month.

The emirate’s first batch of the Pfizer vaccines, which were found to be 95% effective in late-stage clinical trials, landed at Dubai International Airport late Tuesday night from Brussels.

An official Covid-19 vaccination campaign is now underway in the Middle Eastern country, and that campaign “will see the Dubai Health Authority providing the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccination, which has recently been approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and registered by the UAE Ministry of Health and Prevention,” the Dubai Media Office said in a statement.

The first phase of the rollout will see four main groups targeted, with the first group including Emiratis and residents aged 60 and older, people with chronic health conditions, and the disabled.

The second group is frontline health workers, the third is other essential workers and the fourth is members of the general public who want to be vaccinated. The shots will be available at six Dubai Health Authority facilities and by appointment.

“Emirates is proud to be transporting the first batch of Pfizer vaccines for Covid-19 into the UAE for the Dubai Health Authority … it has been our honour to transport these vaccines free of charge on our flight,” Emirates Airline and Group CEO Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum said in a statement.