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SINGAPORE (Reuters) – A 46-year-old nurse became the first person in Singapore to receive the COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech on Wednesday, making the city-state one of the first Asian countries to start a vaccination campaign against coronavirus.
Sarah Lim, a senior nurse at the National Center for Infectious Diseases, was the first of more than 30 center employees to be vaccinated on Wednesday, the Health Ministry said. They will return for the second dose of the vaccine on January 20.
“I am very grateful and grateful to be the first to be vaccinated in Singapore,” said Lim, who helps detect suspected COVID-19 cases. In recorded statements provided by the Health Ministry, he said he hoped to encourage others to get vaccinated.
Singapore is the first country in Asia to approve the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. It has also signed advance purchase agreements and made down payments on several other candidate vaccines, including those being developed by Moderna and Sinovac.
He hopes to have enough vaccine doses for the 5.7 million people by the third quarter of 2021.
Singapore acted swiftly after the first cases of the virus were reported, and while it was surprised by tens of thousands of cases in migrant worker dormitories, it has only reported a handful of new cases in the past two months. The country has one of the lowest COVID-19 death rates in the world; only 29 people have died from the virus.
To show that the vaccine is safe, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, 68, said he and his colleagues would be among the first to receive the injections. They will be free and voluntary, but the government is encouraging all medically eligible residents to take them.
China is vaccinating specific groups of people considered to be at high risk of infection, such as medical workers and border inspectors, under an emergency use program that began in July. Its vaccines are still in advanced stage clinical trials.
In Japan and South Korea, the US military has started its first wave of COVID-19 vaccinations, prioritizing front-line medical workers.
Some Philippine soldiers and cabinet ministers have already received COVID-19 vaccine injections even before regulatory approval.
(Reporting by Aradhana Aravindan in Singapore. Edited by Gerry Doyle)
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