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SINGAPORE (Dec 14): Singapore today became the first Asian country to approve the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine and said it hopes to start receiving injections by the end of the year.
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, 68, said he would be among the first beneficiaries in the city-state of 5.7 million people, which has one of the lowest death rates in the world from the coronavirus. The government said it hopes to have secured enough vaccines for everyone by the third quarter of next year.
“My colleagues and I, including seniors, will get vaccinated early. This is to show them, especially seniors like me, that we believe vaccines are safe,” Lee said in a national broadcast, adding that vaccines will be free voluntary and delivered first to healthcare workers and the elderly.
Singapore also signed pre-purchase agreements and made upfront payments on promising candidate vaccines, including those being developed by Moderna and Sinovac, setting aside more than S $ 1 billion for injections, authorities said.
The city-state’s top health official, Kenneth Mak, told a news conference that Singapore had secured enough vaccinations for all residents. Mak declined to elaborate on the agreements reached with the vaccine manufacturers.
Singapore’s announcement came after the United States launched its vaccine program, with cargo planes and trucks carrying shipments of coronavirus vaccines from FedEx and UPS centers in Tennessee and Kentucky en route to distribution points yesterday. from the US, in an immunization project of unprecedented scope and complexity.
The United States, Canada, and a handful of other countries have approved the Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE vaccine, with a mass inoculation program also underway in Britain.
China and Russia are also rolling out locally developed vaccines.
Lee said Singapore would lift some anti-virus restrictions starting December 28, including allowing groups of eight to meet in public, from a limit of five, and increasing capacity limits for large gatherings.
Singapore has spent billions trying to protect its economy from its worst recession and is trying to reopen international travel as it prepares to host the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum of political and business leaders next year.
The country has reported only a handful of local Covid-19 cases in the past two months.
Only 29 people have died from the disease in Singapore. Most of the more than 58,000 coronavirus cases in the city-state occurred in overcrowded migrant worker dormitories.
Worldwide, more than 70 million people have been infected with the virus, with 1.61 million deaths, according to a Reuters tally.
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