People over 30 will be able to sign up for the COVID-19 vaccine from Tuesday, Health Minister Chris Fearne has announced, as healthcare professionals continue to speed through the roll-out of the jab.
Speaking during Workers' Day festivities, the minister said that those who are over 30 will be able to register online or via SMS, a process introduced some weeks ago when those over 50s started being offered the jab.
The announcement for the over 30s comes just over a week after those in their 40s became eligible for the vaccine. In the week since that aged group was called in, healthcare workers administered doses to over 42 per cent of the cohort.
As of Thursday, more than two out of every three people in their 50s had received at least one vaccine shot, with 94 per cent of over 60s also vaccinated with at least one dose.
Malta is currently administering four different vaccines approved by the European Medicines Authority. Three of those, made by Moderna, Pfizer/BioNTech and AstraZeneca, require two shots to be fully effective. A fourth, made by Johnson & Johnson, is a single-shot vaccine.
Local authorities do not provide data concerning the use of different vaccines.
Malta is leading the EU in terms of vaccine rollout speed, with more than 40 per cent of the population having received at least one vaccine doses so far.
Fearne has previously said that the government is aiming to have achieved an EU-stipulated target of fully vaccinating 70 per cent of adults by early June, with the entire adult population vaccinated by mid-August.
Vaccine certificates by end of May
Meanwhile, the minister also announced Malta's vaccination certificates will be available from the end of May.
The certificate will only show whether a person has been inoculated against COVID-19, unlike the certificate that the the EU is planning on creating, which will also include details about any previous infection as well as test results.
A legal notice regulating Malta's vaccine certificates was published on Friday and indicates that Malta's vaccination certificate can only be used for travel purposes.