Japan begins vaccinating health workers against the coronavirus at the start of a cautious vaccination program, reports AFP.
Japan has so far only approved the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine and began delivering the first shots at a Tokyo hospital on Wednesday morning.
The director of the Tokyo Medical Center, Kazuhiro Araki, became the first person in Japan to receive the vaccine outside of clinical trials.
He told reporters:
The vaccine plays an important role in measures against coronavirus. That’s why I thought as a director I should take the lead and get the chance.
I do not like shots very much. But it was not painful, so it was good. I was relieved.
Twelve staff at the facility will be vaccinated in front of the media on Wednesday, with a total of 800 in line to receive shots – administrative staff included.
Japan initially plans to vaccinate 40,000 health workers across the country and study the effects of the two-dose vaccine on 20,000 of them.
Doses will be administered three weeks apart, and the people in the study group are asked to keep track of any side effects or reactions on a daily basis, local media said.
The country then hopes to vaccinate about 3.7 million health workers from March – starting from April, about 36 million people aged 65 or older.
Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said he “takes seriously the fact that it took time” for Japan to start vaccinations compared to some other countries.
“But today we are starting, and it is the government’s responsibility to prepare the environment so that many Japanese are vaccinated.”
The Japanese minister in charge of vaccinations, Taro Kono, told the media on Tuesday that there is still no timeline for the vaccination of the wider population.
He also admitted that he has ‘no idea’ how much of the population will be vaccinated by the postponed Summer Olympics.
Japan’s approval process was slower than in some other countries because it required additional domestic trials.
But the country has also seen a much more limited outbreak compared to countries hit hard, such as Britain or the United States.