His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, has shared a message of pride to the nation for braving “one of the biggest challenges humanity” has ever faced.

In the annual report Emirates Group publishes every year, His Highness shared some words of praise to the UAE for the country’s response to COVID-19 and weathering the storm of the pandemic.

“We have been tested in our ability to deal with this unforeseen situation, but we have emerged out of it tougher,” he said. “In many ways, the UAE has proved to be one of the best-prepared countries to deal with this pandemic.

“Not only have we effectively safeguarded the health and well-being of citizens and residents, we have also weathered the economic impact of the crisis.”

Paying homage to the founding fathers of the nation, His Highness credited their vision and the “investments we made over the last few decades to create a world-leading infrastructure” in being able to successfully power through the COVID-19 pandemic.

From the get-go, the UAE has been stringent in implementing social distancing measures and ensuring the use of masks. Following this, the nation has gone on to become one of the leaders in the distribution of the available COVID-19 vaccines.

To date, there’s been approximately 13.8 million doses of the vaccine given, with around 3.84 million people now fully vaccinated.

There have been four COVID-19 vaccines available in the UAE.

The first vaccine to be approved in the UAE was the Sinophram vaccine, followed by the Pfizer vaccine.

In January, Russia’s Sputnik V was approved for emergency use with the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine being approved in Dubai shortly after.

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Feature image: Sheikh Mohammed Instagram / WAM