SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – The South Korean Disease Control and Prevention Agency has allowed health workers to squeeze extra doses out of the vials of coronavirus vaccines developed by AstraZeneca and Pfizer.
The decision came on Saturday after some health workers who administered the AstraZeneca shots reported to authorities that they were still seeing additional doses in the bottles each used for ten injections.
KDCA official Jeong Gyeong-shil said skilled workers may be able to squeeze one or two extra doses out of each vial if they use low-volume syringes to reduce medicines and vaccines.
However, she said the KDCA does not allow health professionals to combine vaccines in different bottles to create more doses.
The KDCA has previously allowed ten injections for each AstraZeneca vial and six for each Pfizer vial.
South Korea, which launched its public vaccination campaign on Friday, is giving the AstraZeneca shots to residents and workers at long-term care facilities and the Pfizer medical workers.
South Korea reported another 405 cases of coronavirus on Saturday.
In other developments around the Asia-Pacific region:
More than 500,000 doses of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine arrived in Hong Kong on Saturday after two days of delay due to export procedures, offering the second vaccination for the city. The Pfizer BioNTech shots are offered to approximately 2.4 million residents who are eligible for priority groups such as 60 years and older and health workers. About 70,000 residents who registered for the vaccination program, which began Friday, will receive the shots developed by Chinese biopharmaceutical firm Sinovac. The Sinovac vaccines came first last week. Registration details for those wishing to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech surveys have not yet been announced. Hong Kong has entered a total of 22.5 million doses, with 7.5 million each from Sinovac, AstraZeneca and Fosun Pharma, supplying the Pfizer BioNTech vaccines. The government has so far approved the Sinovac and Pfizer BioNTech vaccines.
—- New Zealand’s largest city Auckland goes into a seven-day lockout again after a new unexplained coronavirus case was found. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern made the announcement Saturday night after an urgent meeting with top lawmakers in the cabinet. She said the closure would take effect from Sunday morning. Auckland was placed in a three-day lock earlier this month after new cases of the more contagious variant first found in Britain were found. New Zealand followed an elimination strategy with the virus with no tolerance and successfully eliminated the spread of the community before the latest cases were found this month. Ardern said the youngest patient had experienced symptoms since earlier in the week and could have infected others. The rest of New Zealand will also have increased restrictions.
The Ministry of Health of Sri Lanka has decided to vaccinate everyone aged 30 and over in the high-risk areas of the capital Colombo and suburbs where COVID-19 cases are on the rise. There have been 466 new cases in the last 24 hours. Sri Lanka began vaccination in January, with health workers. So far, more than 406,000 people have received their shots.