Many countries in the Asia-Pacific region are rolling out the first recordings for COVID-19 this week.
Here is an overview of the most important developments:
SOUTH KOREA
South Korea’s top infectious disease experts have warned vaccines will not end the disease anytime soon, calling for continued vigilance over social distance and mask wearing as the country prepares to take its first shots on Friday. to give.
Jeong Eun-kyeong, director of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, said on Wednesday that it would take “a significant amount of time” for the massive vaccination campaign to bring the virus under control.
The country aims to vaccinate more than 70% of the population by November. But a safe return to a life without masks is highly unlikely this year, given several factors, including the increasing spread of virus variants, said Choi Won Suk, a professor of infectious diseases at Korea University Ansan Hospital.
“We are concerned that people may drop their guard when the vaccination starts, triggering another massive wave of the virus,” Jeong said.
Jeong spoke when South Korea began transporting the first vaccines to roll off a production line in the southern city of Andong, where local pharmaceutical company SK Bioscience makes the shots developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford.
The country will begin vaccination on Friday, starting with residents and workers in long-term care facilities.
Separately, about 55,000 doctors, nurses and other health professionals treating COVID-19 patients will receive the injections developed by Pfizer and BioNTech on Saturday.
AUSTRALIA
Two elderly people have received higher than prescribed doses of the Pfizer vaccine, the Australian health minister said Wednesday.
The 88-year-old man and 94-year-old woman were checked, and the doctor who administered the shots was withdrawn from the vaccination program, Health Secretary Greg Hunt said.
The error occurred on Tuesday at the Holy Spirit’s retirement home in Carseldine, a suburb of Brisbane, the day after the vaccine’s introduction to Australia began, Hunt said.
“Both patients are monitored and both patients show no signs of any side effect at all,” said Hunt. He did not say how much more than the prescribed dose was injected.
Lincoln Hopper, chief executive of St. Vincent’s Care Services who owns the home, said he was “very concerned” about the welfare of the residents. The woman stayed at home while the man was hospitalized, Hopper said.
“This incident is very disturbing for us, for our residents and for their families, and it is also very concerning,” Hopper said. “It has made us wonder if some of the clinicians tasked with administering the vaccine have had the proper training.”
Hunt later revealed that the doctor who administered the overdoses had not taken the online training that all health professionals involved in the program must follow.
Hunt apologized for having previously told Parliament 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 received the first 200,000 doses of the Chinese Sinovac vaccine on Wednesday.
A further 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 supply 200 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine for the region, of which 26 million for Thailand. Thai officials have said they have struck an additional deal with AstraZeneca for a total of 61 million doses.
Many critics and opposition parties have criticized the government’s procurement plans as too slow and inadequate.
Thailand, whose economy depends on tourism revenues, aims to inject 10 million doses per month from June and plans to inoculate at least half of its population by the end of the year.
MALAYSIA
Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin received the first injection of COVID-19 in Malaysia at the start of the vaccination campaign on Wednesday.
“I didn’t feel anything at all. It was all over before I realized it, just like a normal injection. Don’t worry, always come forward, ”he said during a live broadcast.
Director General of Health Noor Hisham Abdullah was also one of the first to be vaccinated.
Malaysia, which has agreements with several vaccine suppliers, including Pfizer and AstroZeneca, is aiming to vaccinate up to 80% percent of its 32 million people next year.
In the first phase, more than half a million health and frontline workers are given priority.
CHINA
Chinese regulators are looking at two more potential COVID-19 vaccines, one from the state-owned Sinopharm and another from a private company, CanSino.
Both companies said their vaccine candidates have been submitted to regulators for approval this week.
China has already approved two vaccines it has used in a massive immunization campaign. One of them is also from Sinopharm, but developed by its subsidiary in Beijing.
Sinopharm said his vaccine candidate is 72.51% effective. Both shots of Sinopharm rely on inactivated viruses, a traditional technology where a live virus is killed and then purified. The inactivated virus then triggers an immune response.
CanSino’s vaccine is a single dose injection that relies on a harmless cold virus called an adenovirus to deliver the virus’s spike gene into the body. The body then makes the spike proteins and then generates an immune response. The technology is comparable to the Astrazeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, which rely on different adenoviruses.
CanSino said its vaccine candidate is 65.28% effective.
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