No prior appointments required for select persons at new Covid-19 vaccination centre in Abu Dhabi’s Masdar City

Mubadala Health has opened a new Covid-19 vaccination centre in Masdar City, Abu Dhabi.

The first vaccination dose is available immediately to UAE citizens and residents aged 50 and over, those with chronic illnesses and people of determination at the walk-in centre in Masdar City. The jab is also immediately available to people under the age of 50 who are coming in for their second shot of the Covid-19 vaccine.

The centre is open from Sunday to Thursday between 10am and 7pm, and no prior appointments are necessary for people who meet the current criteria, state news agency WAM confirmed on Tuesday.

Read: Covid-19 vaccine: Elderly and people with chronic diseases to be prioritised at all centres across the UAE

Visitors will be asked to present their Emirates ID and to have the AlHosn app downloaded on their mobile phones before receiving the vaccine.

“We are actively working on adding new vaccination centres and mobile clinics at various locations outside of our network and facilities,” said Omar Al Naqbi, acting executive director of Healthpoint, a Mubadala Health partner and one of the healthcare providers supporting the operations at the vaccination centres of Mubadala Health.

Masdar City is home to a number of companies supporting the UAE’s efforts to contain the Covid-19 pandemic. It includes bio-technology maker Mondialab, which plans to start producing a wireless screening device called ‘The Resolute,’ providing health authorities with a preliminary indication of a patient’s exposure to Covid-19 within 10 minutes.

Similarly, Masdar City’s start-up business accelerator, The Catalyst, run by Masdar and BP, supports a tech firm called Volts which is working on a new generation of portable battery systems that store and distribute electricity from solar cells and wind turbines, which can be used to power remote field hospitals treating Covid-19 cases.

The UAE government has confirmed that it will soon set up seven field hospitals to deal with Covid-19 patients.

Read: UAE to set up 7 Covid-19 field hospitals; Dubai increases interval between Oxford-AstraZeneca jabs

“Masdar City is a growing hub of world-class sustainable technology innovators, including healthcare and biotech companies, and we are proud to incubate companies that bolster the UAE’s efforts to tackle the pandemic,” said Abdulla Balalaa, acting executive director, Sustainable Real Estate, Masdar City.

“As an example of this, the technology firm G42 opened one the largest Covid-19 testing facilities in the world in Masdar City in March 2020. This was the first testing centre of its scale to be operational outside of China. Housing a Covid-19 vaccination centre is therefore a natural next step for us.”