A security guard checks the vaccination status of a shopper before allowing entry into a market in Phnom Penh (Photo: khmertimeskh.com)Phnom Penh (VNA) – Cambodia’s Ministry of Healthis looking into the possibility of requiring proof of booster shots statusbefore allowing quarantine-free entry into Cambodia, in an effort to containthe Omicron strain of COVID-19.
This is to ensure the success of the country’s efforts toachieve herd immunity.
Khmer Times newspaper quoted Health Ministry spokesman HokKimcheng as saying that the ministry is mulling over the implementation of anadditional quarantine-free entry requirement that all arrivals from othercountries must have had booster shots after a maximum of six months from thetime they were vaccinated with the second dose.
Cambodia posts a high vaccination rate and is heading towardachieving the herd immunity target for people in the country, he said, addingthat the booster shot requirement is being implemented because the highlyinfectious Omicron variant is circulating widely.
However, it will be difficult to implement the booster shotentry requirement in the near future because some countries have yet toestablish a booster shot regime.
Authorities of Phnom Penh capital have urged people to getbooster shots, imposing stricter conditions for those who wish to enter publicor private institutions or businesses.
Meanwhile, Indonesian President Joko Widodo has ordered theacceleration of the production of the country’s COVID-19 candidate vaccine in abid to speed up vaccination.
The vaccine is expected to be launched no later than this March,according to Indonesian Minister of Health Budi Gunadi Sadikin.
The country on January 12 began to administer the boostershots as it reported the highest COVID-19 daily caseload in the recent threemonths prompted by the fast-spreading Omicron variant./.
