SEOUL, Feb 16 (NNN-YONHAP) – South Korean Prime Minister, Chung Sye-kyun, said today, the government secured additional vaccines for 23 million people, raising the total secured volume for 79 million people.
Chung told an interagency meeting for COVID-19 response that, the country will receive vaccine doses for 20 million people from the U.S. pharmaceutical firm Novavax, and additional doses for three million people from the U.S. drugmaker, Pfizer, respectively.
South Korea had already secured vaccines for 56 million people, including doses for 10 million each from Pfizer and AstraZeneca, 20 million from Moderna, six million from Janssen and 10 million from the COVAX facility, led by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Chung said, the contract with Novavax was more significant, as vaccines from the U.S. company will be manufactured in local factories, through the transfer of technology to a South Korean drug-maker.
He noted that it will play a big role in speeding up the development of homegrown COVID-19 vaccines.
The Novavax vaccines will be manufactured in the vaccine production plant of SK Bioscience, a pharmaceutical unit of South Korea’s third-biggest conglomerate SK Group.
South Korean President, Moon Jae-in, vowed to offer COVID-19 vaccines to all of the country’s 52 million population, free of charge, aiming to almost completely form a herd immunity, no later than Nov.
In the latest tally, the country reported 457 more cases of COVID-19 for the past 24 hours, lifting the total number of infections to 84,325. The daily caseload rose above 400 in four days.– NNN-YONHAP
