Cambodia Prime Minister, Samdech Techo Hun Sen, on Tuesday said that the right to survival was the most fundamental right for children during the COVID-19 pandemic. To safeguard their lives, COVID-19 vaccination was the best choice, he said in a message to mark the International Children’s Day on June 1.
“Cambodia has been implementing the first and most important right for children, it’s the right to life through providing them, aged three years old and above, with COVID-19 vaccine,” Hun Sen said.
He also recalled that during the pandemic, the government had provided cash assistance to more than 600,000 children in poor families across the Southeast Asian nation.
Cambodia Health Ministry said so far the country has administered COVID-19 vaccines to over 15 million people, or 94 per cent of its total population of 16 million.
It said that of that figure, 4.72 million, or 29.5 percent, are children aged from three to below 18 years old.
China’s Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines have been widely used in the kingdom’s immunization programme and Sinovac was the only vaccine used to inoculate children.
Buoyed by its high vaccination rates, Cambodia has resumed all socioeconomic activities and reopened its borders to fully vaccinated travelers without quarantine since November 2021.
According to the ministry, Cambodia has reported no new cases of COVID-19 for the last 24 days, with only four active cases remaining in the kingdom.