Japan may approve second COVID-19 vaccine in May, says health minister

The country’s health minister said on Sunday that his ministry could approve a second COVID-19 vaccine as early as May, as the government considered vaccinations to be crucial for fighting infections.

“There is the possibility of granting pharmaceutical approval as early as May or June,” Norihisa Tamura, Minister of Health, Labor and Welfare, said during a TV program.

Tamura also said the government would be willing to consider an application by Johnson & Johnson for its single-dose vaccine if it is submitted. But it has yet to be decided whether the vaccine will be purchased as discussions continue, he said.

The American pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. ‘s vaccination was the first to be approved in Japan in February. The British AstraZeneca PLC applied for coronavirus vaccination in early February, and Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. also applied last Friday for the approval of the US biotechnology company Moderna Inc.

Takeda, which handles the local approval and import of about 50 million doses of Moderna, announced the submission. Earlier it was said approval could be given in May.

Japan began vaccinations in mid-February with the help of Pfizer Inc. se inenting. But Pfizer doses, imported from European factories, are in short supply.

Japan has signed agreements with the three vaccine makers for a total of 314 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine, enough to vaccinate 157 million people. The country’s population is about 126 million.

Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has repeatedly said vaccinations are an important step in bringing the pandemic under control as early as possible.

Tamura also said the government intends to increase medical capacity once the state of emergency for Tokyo and three surrounding prefectures is lifted. The emergency statement covering the capital and prefectures of Chiba, Kanagawa and Saitama was extended by two weeks on Friday.

“We do not want to see a new revival of the virus, but we need to think about the worst case scenario,” Tamura said, adding that the government intends to sharpen the health care system so that it is a revival that even twice the scale of the current wave is.