S.Korea to secure coronavirus vaccines for 60% of population -PM Chung (updated)

SK Chemicals

15/09/2020 04:18

(Adds context)
    By Sangmi Cha
    SEOUL, Sept 15 (Reuters) - South Korea will secure early
supply of the novel coronavirus vaccines for 30 million people,
or 60% of its population, Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun told a
cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
    While authorities would like to inoculate the country's
entire population of 52 million, uncertainty around the
vaccine's safety, efficacy and development was limiting South
Korea's investment, Chung said.
    Chung said the government will negotiate with the relevant
international organisations and vaccine makers to secure the
early supply of the COVID-19 vaccines and would buy more as the
development proceeds.
    In August, South Korea said it planned to join the COVAX
facility, a global COVID-19 vaccine allocation plan co-led by
the World Health Organization (WHO) that aims to help buy and
fairly distribute the shots.
    South Korea will purchase 20 million doses of vaccines from
the COVAX scheme, available for 10 million people, and 40
million doses from private drug makers, the health authorities
said in a statement.
    South Korea’s SK Bioscience in July agreed to manufacture
AstraZeneca’s  AZN.L  experimental vaccine, that has shown
promise against the coronavirus, to help the British company
build global supplies.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL3N2ES288
    Novavax Inc  NVAX.O  last month separately said SK
Bioscience, a unit of SK Chemicals  285130.KS , would
manufacture a component of the U.S. drug developer's
experimental coronavirus vaccine in a bid to boost its supply.
 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL4N2FF3AD
    The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency reported 106
new coronavirus cases as of Monday midnight, which brought the
total number of infections to 22,391, and the total COVID-19
death tally to 367.

 (Reporting by Sangmi Cha; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and
Ana Nicolaci da Costa)
 ((Sangmi.Cha@thomsonreuters.com; +82 2 3704 5646; Reuters
Messaging: sangmi.cha.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))