Cambodia urges high-risk groups to receive 4th dose of COVID-19 vaccine

PHNOM PENH -- Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen on Monday urged high-risk groups in capital Phnom Penh to receive the fourth dose of the COVID-19 vaccine starting from Jan 14.

The fourth-dose campaign will begin with frontliners including leaders of the government, the senate, the National Assembly, frontline doctors, government officials, the army and police, local authorities and the elderly, according to the health ministry.

Staff of embassies and both national and international organizations as well as journalists and celebrities are also invited to join the campaign, the ministry added.

The kingdom has reported three more local cases of the Omicron COVID-19 variant, bringing the total number of the variant to 183, Hun Sen said during the inauguration of a stretch of National Road 5 in northwestern Battambang province and his speech was live broadcast on the state-run National Television of Cambodia (TVK).

"The Omicron has now spread in our community. On Saturday, the first case was confirmed and on Sunday, three more cases were detected," he said.

Meanwhile, Hun Sen announced the start of the new academic year 2022 for general education, saying that more than 3 million students would return to school for the new academic year, beginning from Monday.

Cambodia has reopened all socio-economic activities since November, buoyed by its high vaccination rates.

The country had so far administered at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccines to 14.28 million people, or 89.2 percent of its 16-million population, the health ministry said.

Of them, 13.68 million, or 85.5 percent, were fully vaccinated with two required shots, and 3.91 million, or 24.4 percent, had taken a booster shot, it added.

Most of the vaccines used in the country's inoculation campaign are China's Sinovac and Sinopharm.