Muslims pray at the Grand Mosque, with a view of the Kaaba, Islam's holiest shrine, in Saudi Arabia's city of Mecca on the first day of the fasting month of Ramadan, on April 2, 2022.
(ABDEL GHANI BASHIR / AFP)
KUALA LUMPUR / BENGALURU / CANBERRA – Saudi Arabia will let up to 1 million people join the Haj pilgrimage this year, greatly expanding the key event to participants from outside the kingdom after two years of tight COVID restrictions, state media said on Saturday.
Pilgrims to Mecca this year must be under age 65 and fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, the ministry of Hajj and Umrah said
Pilgrims to Mecca this year must be under age 65 and fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, the ministry of Hajj and Umrah said in a statement carried by the SPA news agency.
Participants from abroad will be allowed this year but must present a recent negative COVID PCR test, and health precautions will be observed, it said.
Last year, the kingdom limited the annual Haj, one of Islam's five main pillars, to 60,000 domestic participants, compared to the pre-pandemic 2.5 million.
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Visits to the holiest sites of Islam in Mecca and Medina for the week-long haj, and the lesser, year-round umrah pilgrimage, previously earned the kingdom about $12 billion a year, according to official data.
A student receives her first dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine in Sydney on Aug 9, 2021, as Year 12 students in their final year of secondary school are inoculated ahead of their Higher School Certificate examinations.
(DEAN LEWINS / POOL / AFP)
Australia
Australia's medical regulator has provisionally approved COVID-19 booster vaccines for adolescents as young as 12.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration on Friday announced provisional approval for Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine as a booster for Australians aged 12-15, recommending that people in that age group get a booster six months after their second vaccine dose.
This decision follows the provisional approval granted to Pfizer for the use of COVID-19 vaccine as a booster in individuals 18 years and older on Oct 26 last year and in individuals 16 and 17 years old on Jan 27, said TGA.
It is the first vaccine approved for the age cohort but must also receive approval from the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation before it can be rolled out.
According to the data from the Department of Health, so far about 68.6 percent of the eligible population had received booster vaccines. There had been 6,526 total COVID-19 deaths and approximately 4.78 million confirmed cases in Australia as of Friday afternoon.
The rollout of a second booster dose for elderly and vulnerable Australians began on Monday ahead of an expected winter spike in COVID-19 infections.
On Saturday, Australia reported more than 50,000 new COVID-19 cases and 24 deaths, including 10 in New South Wales, the country's most populous state.
India
India will offer booster doses of COVID-19 vaccine to all adults from Sunday, although free third doses will be limited to frontline workers and those older than 60 who get them at government centers.
Those older than 18 who received a second dose nine months ago will be eligible for the "precaution" dose, India's health ministry said, using the government's term for boosters
The country has given 1.85 billion vaccine doses among its population of 1.35 billion. Of these, 82 percent are the AstraZeneca dose made domestically and called Covishield.
Those older than 18 who received a second dose nine months ago will be eligible for the "precaution" dose, the health ministry said, using the government's term for boosters.
"Adding an extra layer of safety," Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said in a Twitter post flagging the decision.
The booster program started in January, limited to frontline workers and the elderly, administering a total of 24 million doses.
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When the program is extended on Sunday, those outside these two priority categories will have to pay for the shots at privately run facilities, with no mixing and matching of vaccines allowed.
Other vaccines used in India are the domestically developed Covaxin and Corbevax, and Russia's Sputnik V.
Malaysia
Malaysia reported 14,944 new COVID-19 infections as of midnight Friday, bringing the national total to 4,307,529, according to the health ministry.
Of the new infections, there are 104 imported cases and the rest 14,840 are local transmissions, data released on the ministry's website showed.
A further 31 deaths have been reported, taking the country's COVID-19 death toll to 35,259.
The country reported 34,904 vaccine doses administered on Friday alone and 84.4 percent of the population have received at least one dose, 79.3 percent are fully vaccinated and 48.7 percent have received boosters.