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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – The South Korean Agency for Disease Control and Prevention has allowed health workers to withdraw additional doses from vials of the coronavirus vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Pfizer.
Saturday’s decision came after some health workers who administered the AstraZeneca injections reported to authorities that they were still seeing extra doses in the vials that had each been used for 10 injections.
KDCA official Jeong Gyeong-shil said skilled workers might be able to take an extra dose or two from each vial if they use low dead volume syringes designed to reduce wastage of drugs and vaccines.
However, she said the KDCA does not allow health workers to combine vaccines left in different bottles to create more doses.
The KDCA had previously authorized 10 injections for each vial of AstraZeneca and six for each vial of Pfizer.
South Korea, which launched its public vaccination campaign on Friday, is administering AstraZeneca vaccines to residents and workers in long-term care facilities and those at Pfizer to frontline medical workers.
South Korea reported 405 more cases of the coronavirus on Saturday.
In other developments around the Asia-Pacific region:
– More than 500,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine arrived in Hong Kong on Saturday after a two-day delay due to export procedures, providing a second inoculation option for the city. Pfizer-BioNTech injections will be offered to approximately 2.4 million eligible residents belonging to priority groups such as those aged 60 and over and healthcare workers. About 70,000 residents who have signed up for the vaccination program, which began on Friday, will receive vaccines developed by Chinese biopharmaceutical company Sinovac. Sinovac vaccines were the first to arrive last week. Registration details for those wishing to receive Pfizer-BioNTech photos have not yet been announced. Hong Kong has signed deals for a total of 22.5 million doses, including 7.5 million each from Sinovac, AstraZeneca and Fosun Pharma, which supplies Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines. The government has so far approved the Sinovac and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines.
—- Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city, is back in a seven-day lockdown after the discovery of a new unexplained coronavirus case. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern made the announcement on Saturday evening after an urgent meeting with key Cabinet lawmakers. She said the lockdown would take effect from Sunday morning. Auckland earlier this month was placed in a three-day lockdown after new cases of the most contagious variant found in Britain were discovered. New Zealand has pursued a zero-tolerance elimination strategy with the virus and was successful in eliminating the spread of the community before the last cases were discovered this month. Ardern said the last patient had shown symptoms since the start of the week and could have infected others. The rest of New Zealand will also have increased restrictions.
– Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Health has decided to vaccinate all people aged 30 and over in high-risk areas of the capital Colombo and suburbs where COVID-19 cases are increasing. There have been 466 new cases in the past 24 hours. Sri Lankan began its vaccination campaign in January, starting with health workers. So far, more than 406,000 people have received their vaccine.
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