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A sign reminds people to wear their protective masks due to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, during the Poinsettia Wishes flower show, as part of the Christmas celebrations at Gardens by the Bay in Singapore on Sunday. (Reuters photo)
SINGAPORE: Singapore received its first batch of Covid-19 vaccines on Monday, according to logistics firm DHL, ahead of a deployment to the city-state that health officials say could take two to three weeks.
DHL, which is involved in transporting the first of the vaccines to Singapore from Belgium, did not specify the batch size or name the vaccines that were delivered.
Singapore said last week that it had approved Pfizer-BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine, becoming the first Asian country to do so.
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, 68, 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.
The government said it will first administer the vaccine to healthcare workers and the elderly.
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.
