[ad_1]
SEOUL: South Korea signed agreements with Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen to import coronavirus vaccines to cover up to 16 million people, as it deals with the third wave of the pandemic, Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said in a briefing. televised on Thursday (December 24).
The government has faced mounting public pressure over its COVID-19 vaccine procurement plans, as the country reported its second-highest daily case count on Wednesday.
Pfizer’s two-dose vaccine, developed with German partner BioNTech, will be enough to cover 10 million people and is expected to ship in the third quarter of 2021.
“We are mobilizing all national capacity to bring shipments within the second quarter,” Chung said. “The negotiation is underway.”
Chung said the doses from Janssen, J & J’s pharmaceuticals division, have been added from the initial amount for 4 million people to 6 million and will be ready for inoculation from the second quarter.
READ: South Korea orders ski resort closure and winter tourism to curb the spread of COVID-19
The Pfizer and Janssen agreements are part of a government plan to purchase sufficient doses from four pharmacists and the global COVAX initiative, backed by the World Health Organization, which will allow the immunization of at least 85% of the population of 52 million from South Korea.
The government had already signed an agreement with AstraZeneca, which will ship in January next year, and is in final talks with Moderna Inc to sign an agreement in January to secure 20 million doses.
Health authorities will start a public vaccination program in February next year, to be completed around November, before the start of the flu season, Yang Dong-gyo, a senior official at the Korea Agency for Disease Prevention and Control (KDCA) said a briefing.
The government had allocated an additional 1.3 trillion won ($ 1.2 billion) to next year’s budget for vaccines.
The KDCA reported 985 new coronavirus cases as of midnight Wednesday, bringing the nation’s count to 53,533, with 756 deaths.
READ: Seoul To Ban Gatherings Of More Than 4 As South Korea Reports Daily Kills From COVID-19
South Korea has increased testing to more than 55,000 people a day, up from about 16,000 a day in September, to track cases of unknown origin and asymptomatic cases.
Authorities have closed all winter resorts and resorts and banned gatherings of more than four in a bid to stop the spread over the Christmas and New Year holidays.
Asia’s fourth-largest economy won international praise earlier this year when it quickly suppressed the outbreaks with aggressive high-tech contact tracing, but officials acknowledged an overconfidence that had them scrambling to contain a third wave.
CHECK THIS: Our comprehensive coverage of the coronavirus outbreak and its developments
Download our app or subscribe to our Telegram channel for the latest updates on the coronavirus outbreak: https://cna.asia/telegram
