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SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Singapore on Monday received its first batch of the COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech, according to its flag carrier, ahead of a launch in the city-state that health officials say could be as soon as two or three weeks. far.
Singapore Airlines, which was transporting the vaccines aboard one of its freighters from Belgium, did not specify the batch size.
Singapore is the first Asian country to receive vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech after it said last week that it had approved the companies’ vaccine.
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, 68, has said he would be among the first recipients of the vaccine in the nation of 5.7 million people, which has one of the lowest coronavirus death rates in the world.
“Delighted to see the first shipment of vaccines arrive in Singapore,” Lee posted on Facebook on Monday, adding that authorities will announce the details of a launch in due course.
He reiterated that the vaccination will be voluntary and that he encouraged Singaporeans to take it.
The government plans to administer the vaccine to healthcare workers and the elderly first. Health Ministry official Kenneth Mak had said last week that the first blows could occur “within the next two to three weeks” if carried out safely.
Singapore has kept new local infections close to zero every day in recent months and will ease restrictions further next week.
It has signed advance purchase agreements and made upfront payments on several candidate vaccines, including those being developed by Moderna and Sinovac, setting aside more than S $ 1 billion ($ 746.16 million) for injections.
Most of the more than 58,000 coronavirus cases in the city-state occurred in overcrowded migrant worker dormitories, but there are some concerns about asymptomatic carriers and undetected transmission.
The government said Saturday that it was investigating whether 13 travelers who tested positive at a five-star hotel in November could have been infected there during their mandatory quarantine, rather than before they arrived in the country.
(Information from Aradhana Aravindan in Singapore; Editing by Martin Petty / Mark Heinrich)
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