Jakarta (Indonesia Window) – Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud on Friday (Jan. 8) received the first dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine in Neom, a modern city in the northwestern Saudi province of Tabuk, Saudi Press Agency reported.

“Today, the king received the vaccine in order to prevent him from receiving the virus, and this initiative affirms the Kingdom’s policy is always prevention before treatment,” Minister of Health Tawfiq Al-Rabiah said.

He added that Saudi Arabia was the second Gulf country after Bahrain to approve the use of the vaccine, which was developed by US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech.

The vaccination will be carried out in three stages, the ministry of health said, with each stage targeting a specific demographic.

Earlier, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his bother Prince Khalid bin Salman, along with several other senior Saudi officials, have already taken the first dose of the vaccine.

Meanwhile, more than one million people have registered to receive it with more than 100,000 inoculated to date across the three vaccine centers in Riyadh, Makkah and the Eastern Province.

Reporting by Indonesia Window