SEOUL (REUTERS, XINHUA) - South Korea's Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said on Tuesday (Feb 16) that the government reached deals to buy additional coronavirus vaccines for 23 million people, the Yonhap news agency reported.
Preparing for an inoculation drive that is set to begin on Feb 26, South Korea had already secured supply agreements for enough doses for 56 million, though it has a population of 52 million.
But the vaccination programme is set to get off to a slower start, as some of the vaccines acquired have not yet proven sufficiently effective against new strains of Covid-19, while some manufacturers may not be able to deliver on time due to production problems.
To overcome those issues, South Korea has struck additional deals with Novavax Inc for enough vaccines to cover 20 million people and with Pfizer to cover a further 3 million, Mr Chung said, making the total supply enough to cover 79 million people.
"The government has been working to bring in sufficient early supplies, but there is growing uncertainty over our plan for the first half due to production issues with global drugmakers and international competition to adopt more vaccines," he told a televised meeting.
Novavax said on Monday it has signed a license agreement with South Korea manufacturer SK Bioscience to produce 40 million doses of its Covid-19 vaccine for South Korea.
"Concurrently, SK Bioscience has finalized an advance purchase agreement with the Korean government to supply 40 million doses of NVX-CoV2373 to the Republic of Korea beginning in 2021", Novavax said in a statement.
On Monday, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said it would initially exclude people aged 65 years and older from inoculation with AstraZeneca's coronavirus vaccine because of a lack of data proving its efficacy in the elderly.
The decision threatens to derail the country's vaccination plans, which had called for healthcare workers and the elderly to be among the first to receive vaccinations starting on Feb 26.
South Korea reported 457 more cases of Covid-19 as of midnight Monday compared to 24 hours ago, raising the total number of infections to 84,325. The daily caseload was up from 343 in the previous day, rising above 400 for first time in four days.
The daily number of infections hovered above 100 since Nov 8 owing to small cluster infections in Seoul and its surrounding Gyeonggi province as well as imported cases. Of the new cases, 155 were Seoul residents and 129 were people residing in Gyeonggi province.
Twenty-eight cases were imported from overseas, lifting the combined figure to 6,747.
Seven more deaths were confirmed, leaving the death toll at 1,534. The total fatality rate stood at 1.82 percent.
The country has tested more than 6.21 million people, among whom 6,052,268 tested negative for the virus and 76,897 are being checked.
