DUBAI (Reuters) - Bahraini authorities have authorised the use of a booster dose of the Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine, the first time the Russian shot has been approved for a third dose, the state-run Bahrain News Agency said on Saturday.

       The booster shot was approved for use among all over-18s at least six months after receiving their second dose of the Sputnik V vaccine, the news agency reported.

       Bahrain and fellow Gulf state the United Arab Emirates have already approved third booster shots using the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

       The small island nation's COVID-19 infections are decreasing, currently at 3% of their peak with 95 new infections reported on average each day, according to the Reuters COVID-19 Tracker.

       There have been 272,709 infections and 1,388 coronavirus-related deaths reported in Bahrain, which has a population of roughly 1.7 million according to the World Bank.

       So far nearly 2.5 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered, enough to inoculate about 76% of the population, assuming each person needs two doses.

       (Reporting by Yousef Saba; Editing by Helen Popper)