South Korea witnessed a surge in COVID-19 cases in December, as criticism has mounted about vaccine delays. File Photo by Thomas Maresca/UPI |
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Dec. 24 (UPI) -- South Korea said it has secured enough vaccines to inoculate 46 million people, after signing new contracts with Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson-owned pharmaceuticals company Janssen.
Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said Thursday Pfizer signed a contract with Seoul to supply vaccines for 10 million people. Janssen will provide 6 million doses. The new deals, taken together, will cover 16 million, Chung said, according to local network SBS and Maeil Business on Thursday.
In early December South Korea confirmed it had ordered AstraZeneca vaccines that would cover 10 million South Koreans.
Moderna has also signed a contract with South Korea, and an additional deal could be reached in January. The company will supply vaccines to immunize 10 million people, and doses for another 10 million South Koreans will be secured through the COVAX Facility, managed by the World Health Organization.
Taken together, the vaccines cover 46 million people in a country with a population of 52 million.
The government previously said the AstraZeneca vaccine would be available by March at the latest, but was met with criticism from public interest groups for not securing more doses.
The Korean Society of Health has said the country should begin vaccinations by Feb. 1 "at the latest," according to the Korea Herald on Thursday.
The vaccines will be distributed in 2021, Seoul said. The AstraZeneca vaccine is to be available for high-priority groups in the first quarter, followed by Janssen in the second quarter and Pfizer in the third, according to SBS.
Pfizer's vaccine, co-developed with BioNTech, requires two doses given three weeks apart, while Janssen requires only a single dose.
On Thursday Yang Dong-gyo, head of the medical safety prevention bureau of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, said Seoul is getting ready to introduce vaccines in phases, selecting the initial recipients of vaccines while "taking into account their effectiveness."
South Korea has witnessed a spike in COVID-19. The country reported an additional 985 cases of the coronavirus Thursday, with the total at 53,333 since the start of the pandemic.
