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By Hyonhee Shin
SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea is in final talks with global drug makers, including Pfizer Inc, on potential coronavirus vaccines, as it seeks to secure supplies to cover 60% of its population this year, health authorities said Thursday.
The government has allocated 172 billion won ($ 154 million) to purchase 60 million initial doses to tackle the persistent COVID-19 outbreaks that have hit Asia’s fourth-largest economy and disrupted the daily lives of its 52 million people. ‘inhabitants.
This week, Pfizer said its experimental COVID-19 vaccine was over 90% effective in a fast-paced global race to contain the pandemic that has killed more than a million people since it emerged in China at the end of the year. last year.
Health officials said progress had been made in their negotiations with several drugmakers conducting Phase 3 clinical trials for their vaccines, including Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Novavax Inc.
“We will source as much as possible with the initial goal of securing supplies to 60 percent of the population,” said Kwon Jun-wook, deputy director of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).
“So far there has been significant progress and we were at a final stage of talks,” Kwon said, declining to elaborate, citing the ongoing negotiations.
Kwon said the government has already secured some 20 million doses, enough for 10 million people, through the COVAX facility, an international COVID-19 vaccine allocation platform co-led by the World Health Organization .
The remaining 40 million doses will be purchased from private companies.
The government said it plans to hold its first meeting Thursday evening with a newly formed expert advisory committee to discuss its vaccine procurement plans, including safety standards and distribution procedures.
South Korea is one of the coronavirus mitigation success stories, with an aggressive testing and tracing strategy, but it continues to grapple with small clusters of outbreaks.
The KDCA reported 143 new cases of coronavirus on Wednesday, bringing the total number of infections to 27,942 with 487 deaths.
“It will take some time for a vaccine to gain final approval before it is used,” Kwon said. “But this will be the last winter for us to go by walking away and wearing masks.”
($ 1 = 1,114.6400 won)
(Reporting by Hyonhee Shin; Editing by Kim Coghill)
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