South Korea strikes a deal with Pfizer to procure additional 40 million doses of its COVID – 19 vaccine :
South Korea has recently been actively procuring COVID – 19 vaccines from many pharma majors. Over 192 million doses of the vaccines have been secured from various companies to date. This includes vaccines from Moderna, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson’s, and Novavax. Johnson & Johnson’s COVID vaccine
Pfizer- The pharma major has recently signed a deal with South Korea for the vaccine. South Korea had struck a deal with this drug firm to supply an additional 40 million doses apart from the initially agreed volume. The company disclosed this news on 24 April 2021.
This latest agreement brings the current amount of Pfizer vaccines to the country to be around 66 million. Pfizer’s COVID–19 vaccine update
The Health Minister of the country revealed that the vaccines procured could vaccinate over 100 million people. This estimated amount is double the entire population of South Korea. [4]
He further added that the government intends to vaccinate around 12 million people by the end of June 2021. It was also revealed that the country plans to achieve herd immunity by November 2021.
The recent deal with Pfizer comes after the company agreed to supply additional vaccines to Japan. These additional vaccines will be supplied to Japan by the end of September 2021. It has been claimed that this would be enough to vaccinate all the Japanese over 16 years of age.
Vaccination drive in South Korea
In South Korea, around 2.2 million people have received the first vaccine dose out of the total population of 52 million. This has brought the vaccination rate of the country to just above 4 %. By November 2021, the government intends to reach a 70 % vaccination rate.
This rate is very much lower when compared to the USA which has a vaccination rate of 41 %, as per Reuters data.
A Korean survey on 23 April 2021, showed that the public was dissatisfied with the government’s handling of the pandemic. The negative views outweighed the positive views in regards to the government’s response to COVID – 19 and vaccination.
The positive views in May 2020 comprised 85 % of the total views. This, however, has slumped to 43 % in the recent survey. The high number of positive views in 2020 was attributed to the time when the daily infections were in single digits.
As of 23 April 2021, South Korea reported around 785 new cases bringing the total count to over 118,243. The number of people who have succumbed to this virus was estimated to be around 1,812.