By Sangmi Cha
SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea is expecting its first batch of coronavirus vaccines from the global COVAX vaccine sharing scheme within a few weeks and has started creating vaccination centers, an Interior Ministry spokesman said Thursday. market.
The delivery is likely to accelerate the vaccination campaign, which is expected to begin in late February, as South Korea has not yet finalized priority groups and detailed inoculation plans.
A deputy Interior Ministry spokesman, Park Jong-hyun, told Reuters: “100,000 doses of Pfizer vaccines for 50,000 people can arrive before the Lunar New Year holiday through COVAX facilities.”
The holiday starts on February 11 this year.
The ministry has designated about 250 spacious indoor gyms and theaters across the country to vaccinate people with Pfizer and Moderna vaccines that require cold chain storage, Park said.
Vaccinations will start as soon as possible, but the exact date has not yet been set, he said.
South Korea has not yet approved the use of the Pfizer vaccine, but the World Health Organization, which leads the COVAX scheme, authorized the vaccination in late December.
South Korea said it plans to secure collective immunity to the virus through mass vaccinations by November, but some medical experts doubted the plan, citing slow progress in training personnel for storage, distribution and inoculation.
For inoculations with AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines that do not require deep-frozen storage, authorities will designate 10,000 hospitals and clinics across the country, Park said.
The country has secured 106 million doses of vaccines against coronavirus, more than enough for its 52 million residents, from COVAX, Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson.
It is also in talks to buy 40 million doses of a coronavirus vaccine developed by Novavax.
South Korea reported 401 new infections on Wednesday, totaling 73,918 cases, with 1,316 deaths.
(Reporting by Sangmi Cha; Editing by Miyoung Kim and Clarence Fernandez)