New Delhi (NVI): South Korea has ordered COVID-19 vaccines for 88 percent of its population, or 44 million people, announcing deals with four pharmaceutical companies as well as the World Health Organization’s global vaccine project, known as COVAX.
The announcement came as South Korea struggles to contain its third and largest wave of coronavirus infections – a resurgence that authorities have described as a “dire crisis” that threatens to overwhelm the country’s healthcare system, according to Yonhap news agency.
Park Neung-hoo, South Korea’s minister of health, said the government has arranged to buy 20 million doses each from AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Moderna, and a further four million doses from Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen, which will be enough to cover as many as 34 million people.
Additional doses for 10 million people would be procured through COVAX, he added.
“We had initially planned to secure vaccines for 30 million people but decided to purchase more, as there is uncertainty over the success of the vaccine candidates and the competition is intense among countries for early purchases,” he said.
Reportedly, shipments of the vaccine would begin no later than March, but authorities would observe how the vaccines worked in other countries for several months to ensure safety.
Unlike South Korea’s previous two waves of infections, which were largely focused around a handful of facilities or events, the new wave is being driven by smaller, harder-to-trace clusters in and around the densely populated capital city of Seoul.
The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) reported 594 new coronavirus cases as of midnight on Monday, bringing the country’s total to 38,755, with 552 deaths.
-CHK