Many countries in the Asia-Pacific region are making the first shots for COVID-19 this week.
Here’s a look at key developments:
SOUTH KOREA
South Korea’s leading infectious disease experts have warned that vaccines will not end the disease quickly and called for continued vigilance in social distance and mask wear as the country prepares to give its first shots on Friday.
Jeong Eun-kyeong, director of the Korean Agency for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Wednesday it would take “significantly longer” before the virus was brought under control by the mass vaccination campaign.
The country aims to vaccinate more than 70% of the population by November. But a safe return to life without masks is highly unlikely this year, as several factors are taken into account, including the growing spread of virus variants, said Choi Won Suk, a professor of infectious diseases at Korean University Ansan Hospital , said.
“We are concerned that people may drop their hats if the vaccination starts, which could cause another huge wave of the virus,” Jeong said.
Jeong was speaking when South Korea began transporting the first vaccines from a production line in the southern city of Andong, where local pharmaceutical company SK Bioscience manufactures the shots developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford.
The country begins vaccination Friday with residents and employees at long-term care facilities.
Separately, approximately 55,000 physicians, nurses, and other healthcare professionals treating COVID-19 patients begin receiving the shots developed by Pfizer and BioNTech.
AUSTRALIA
Two elderly people were given higher doses than the prescribed doses of the Pfizer vaccine, the Australian Minister of Health said on Wednesday.
The 88-year-old man and 94-year-old woman are being monitored and the doctor who administered the shots has been suspended from the vaccination program, Health Minister Greg Hunt said.
The mistake occurred on Tuesday at the Holy Spirit’s aged care facility in the suburb of Brisbane, Carseldine, a day after the vaccination began in Australia, Hunt said.
“Both patients are monitored and both patients show no adverse reaction,” Hunt said. He did not say how much more than the prescribed dose was injected.
Lincoln Hopper, CEO of St. Vincent’s Care Services, which owns the house, said he was very concerned about the well-being of the residents. The woman stayed at home while the man was admitted to a hospital, Hopper said.
“This incident was very upsetting to us, our residents and their families, and it is also very worrying,” Hopper said. “It made us doubt whether some clinicians had the task of administering the vaccine, received the necessary training.”
Hunt later revealed that the doctor who administered the overdose did not complete the online training that all health professionals involved in the program must complete.
Hunt apologized for telling parliament earlier that the doctor had been trained. He said he had asked the health department to take action against the doctor and the company the doctor works for.
THAILAND
Thailand on Wednesday received the first 200,000 doses of Sinovac vaccine in China.
Another 117,000 doses of AstraZeneca are expected later Wednesday.
Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha attended a ceremony with the Deputy Head of Mission of the Chinese Embassy to receive the vaccines at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok.
Thailand has ordered a total of 2 million doses from China.
Later this year, local manufacturer Siam Bioscience will deliver 200 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to the region, of which 26 million will be allocated to Thailand. Thai officials said they had obtained an additional agreement with AstraZeneca for 61 million doses.
Many critics and opposition parties have criticized the government’s acquisition plans as too slow and inadequate.
Thailand, whose economy depends on tourism revenue, plans to inject ten million doses a month from June and plans to vaccinate at least half of the population by the end of the year.
Malaysia
Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin received Malaysia’s first COVID-19 vaccine shot on Wednesday at the start of the vaccination campaign.
“I did not feel anything at all. It was all over before I realized, just like a normal injection. Do not worry, come forward at any time, ‘he broadcast live during a ceremony.
The Director-General of Health, Noor Hisham Abdullah, was also one of the first to be vaccinated.
Malaysia, which has signed agreements with several vaccine suppliers, including Pfizer and AstroZeneca, aims to vaccinate up to 80% of its 32 million people by next year.
More than half a million healthcare and frontline workers will benefit in the first phase.
CHINA
Chinese regulators are looking at two more potential COVID-19 vaccines, one from state-owned company Sinopharm and one from a private company, CanSino.
Both companies said their vaccine candidates had been submitted to regulators this week for approval.
China has already approved two vaccines it used in a mass vaccination campaign. One of them is also from Sinopharm, but it was developed by its subsidiary in Beijing.
Sinopharm said its vaccine candidate is 72.51% effective. Both shots of Sinopharm depend on inactivated viruses, a traditional technology in which a live virus is killed and then purified. The inactivated virus then elicits an immune response.
CanSino’s vaccine is a single shot that relies on a harmless cold virus, called an adenovirus, to deliver the spike gene from the virus into the body. The body then makes the vein proteins and then generates an immune response. The technology is similar to the vaccines of Astrazeneca and Johnson & Johnson, which rely on different adenoviruses.
CanSino said its vaccine candidate is 65.28% effective.
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