HPA: Appointments for 2nd Covishield shot must be made via portal

 Health Protection Agency (HPA) has introduced an online portal to issue appointments for people in the Male’ area who wish to receive their second Covishield shot. From today onwards, the second shot will be only administered to those who make their appointment via this portal.

HPA made the decision to begin appointment-based administration of the second Covishield shot initially. However, the administration actually took place through issued tokens via the Queuebee application, until now.

Maldives temporarily ceased the administration of the Covishield vaccine in early May, due to low stock of the vaccine and have now resumed its administration upon receiving a shipment from an anonymous donor last Saturday. 

Although the quantity of the doses received was not specified, HPA noted that they have received a sufficient quantity of doses to resume mass administration of the second Covishield shot without another temporary stoppage.

In their statement, HPA said that the portal was introduced to ease the process of making online appointments for the public. Accordingly, people who have received their first Covishield shot in February and March will now be able to make an appointment to receive their second shot via http://book.hpa.gov.mv – at a time of their own convenience.

Moreover, from today onwards the second shot will be only administered to those who make their appointment via this portal in the Male’ area. In this regard, vaccination centers in Male’ area are presently issuing appointments.

They further explained that missing a confirmed appointment would result in its immediate cancellation after a which a new appointment must be made in order to receive the shot.

Covishied is the first COVID-19 vaccine administered in the Maldives and is also the one most number of people have received up to date.

Though HPA initially set the gap between Covishield two doses at a maximum of eight weeks, it was later revised to six months.