Seoul (South Korea), April 1: South Korea will bring in another 7 million doses of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccines, enough for 3.5 million people, during the second quarter, the country's virus battle chief said Thursday, amid concerns over delays in vaccine shipments.
"It has been confirmed that AstraZeneca vaccines for 1 million people will arrive in the country in May and those for another 2.5 million people in June," said Jeong Eun-kyeong, chief of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).
The vaccines will be the first two batches provided under a direct contract for 10 million people between the British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant and the Seoul government, the KDCA said.
The remark comes as the authorities earlier announced that a planned delivery of COVID-19 vaccines by AstraZeneca through the World Health Organization's global vaccine COVAX Facility project, COVAX, has been pushed back to the third week of this month.
Initially, 690,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, or shots for 345,000 people, were to arrive in the country earlier this week.
The delayed shipment comes as the authorities have been speeding up the rollout of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines to people aged 65 or older after the European Union's medicines regulator assessed that there is no link to blood clots found in some recipients.
But the plan has been postponed, and the amount of the delivery has also been reduced to about 62.6 percent, or 432,000 doses, due to a production delay by the manufacturer.
Jeong also said the KDCA is considering extending the inter-dose interval for AstraZeneca products from the current 10 weeks to 12 weeks to address the potential glitch in the country's vaccination plan.
With the extension, the secured vaccines for the second shots can be used for others for their first shots.
Since Feb. 26, when the country initiated its vaccination program, a total of 876,573 people have been given COVID-19 vaccine shots, about 1.69 percent of the country's 52 million population, the KDCA said.
On Thursday, the country reported 551 more COVID-19 cases, rising to more than 500 for the second day, the KDCA said. The total virus caseload increased to 103,639.
Source: Yonhap
