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SEOUL: South Korea’s ruling party has asked the country to buy millions of additional doses of COVID-19 vaccine after a surge in the number of infections raised concerns about the government’s existing plans.
South Korea already plans to secure enough doses to vaccinate 30 million people, or about 60 percent of the population, but Democratic Party lawmakers said they would allocate funds to buy doses for at least 44 million people.
“The party plans to allocate an additional 1.3 trillion won (US $ 1.2 billion) to next year’s budget,” an official from the office of Democratic Party lawmaker Lee Nak-yon told Reuters.
South Korea is battling one of its largest waves of coronavirus infections yet, fueled by small outbreaks in the densely populated capital of Seoul and surrounding areas.
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The Korea Disease Prevention and Control Agency (KDCA) reported 438 new coronavirus cases as of midnight Sunday (November 29), bringing the country’s total to 34,201 cases and 526 deaths.
The government’s current vaccine purchase plan places it well ahead of the World Health Organization (WHO) goal of early purchasing supplies for the 20% of the most vulnerable people, and the 40% minimum agreed upon by nations. of the European Union, Great Britain and the EU. partners for their populations.
Korean authorities have said they are in no rush to quickly procure a large number of vaccines because the country has managed to keep infection rates at controllable levels, preferring to wait and see which vaccines work best.
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More vaccines of different types also need to be secured because their safety is not yet guaranteed, the KDCA said Monday.
The KDCA has said that they do not expect to begin vaccinating the public until the second quarter of 2021.
The Korea National Clinical Trials Company said that, as of Monday, 3,500 people have pre-registered to participate in clinical trials of experimental vaccines and coronavirus treatment drugs, although a smaller number will be selected to participate.
Under the current plan, the government has secured a third of the doses needed through the COVAX facility, an international COVID-19 vaccine allocation platform co-run by the WHO, with the remaining doses being purchased from private companies.
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