By Hyonhee Shin and Josh Smith
SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea has ordered 23 million people to buy more coronavirus vaccines, the prime minister said on Tuesday, a day after authorities decided to reduce initial vaccination plans, citing delays and concerns about the its effectiveness.
The deal includes vaccines from Novavax Inc for 20 million people and Pfizer products for 3 million, bringing the total number of people covered to 79 million, Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said.
“The government has worked to bring in sufficient early supplies, but our plan for the first half is growing increasingly due to production issues with global drug manufacturers and international competition to ingest more vaccines,” he said at a televised meeting.
The American Novavax has also issued a statement that it has signed a licensing agreement with the South Korean manufacturer SK Bioscience to manufacture 40 million doses of its vaccines for South Korea.
With a population of 52 million, South Korea has already secured enough doses for 56 million people from COVAX, Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson, with the aim of starting vaccinating health workers and the elderly on 26 February.
But authorities said Monday they would not use AstraZeneca vaccines on people 65 and older, reversing an earlier decision due to insufficient efficacy data.
The government cut its first-quarter vaccination targets from 1.3 million to less than 760,000, citing delayed shipments of the global vaccination system COVAX.
The director of the Korea Disease Control & Prevention Agency (KDCA), Jeong Eun-kyeong, said that the adjustments in the first quarter were not expected to achieve a “herd immunity” by November, although some independent health experts doubt the feasibility of that timeline.
The additional Pfizer agreement of 6 million doses was intended to achieve the goal, and the U.S. drugmaker agreed to increase the shipping date for another 1 million doses after the second quarter, Chung said.
The KDCA reported 457 additional cases of coronavirus at midnight on Monday, as the daily score bounced back within four days of the 400s amid heightened tests following last week’s New Year’s holiday.
South Korea’s total infections rose to 84,325 with 1,534 deaths.
(Reported by Hyonhee Shin; edited by Tom Hogue and Gerry Doyle)