Japan COVID-19 vaccine supplies to be limited, delaying photos for elderly: Minister
22 February, 2021
Japan is only going to receive limited dosages of COVID-19 vaccines for the first months of the inoculation rollout and pictures for the elderly will end up being distributed gradually, the country's inoculation chief said.
Pfizer, the maker of Japan's simply approved COVID-19 vaccine, is ramping up development in Europe, but those increased supplies are not likely to reach Japan until May, Administrative Reform Minister Taro Kono cautioned on Sunday (Feb 21) within an interview with national broadcaster NHK.
"We would just like to get started on vaccinations for older people in April, but sadly the amount of doses assigned to them will be very limited at first, so we want to get started on slowly," Kono said.
Japan has negotiated to get a lot more than 500 million dosages of COVID-19 vaccines developed by Western drugmakers. But domestic regulators own only approved one vaccine up to now, and the country remains reliant on imported supplies which have been organized by development snags and export controls.
As Japan and other countries consider how to stretch out scarce vaccine materials, a recently available Israeli study indicated a single shot of the Pfizer formula may drive back the virus, rather than the typical two doses.
Japan's chief federal government spokesman said on Mon that the vaccine's regulatory authorization was predicated on a two-dose regime.
"I think we must carefully consider whether we can immediately conclude out of this research that one dose will do or certainly not," Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato told reporters.
Since Kono was tapped previous month to business lead Japan's vaccination push, he has resisted giving organization timelines for when dosages will arrive and become distributed. Even so, the government has trapped to a pledge to secure enough shots for the whole population of 126 million by June.
Japan has negotiated to receive 144 million dosages of Pfizer's vaccine this season, and its own second shipment of about 450,000 pictures arrived on Sunday.
The inoculation campaign kicked off last week with doctors and nurses getting the first shots. The federal government is normally prioritising vaccinations for about 4.7 million medical workers, about 1 million a lot more than initially estimated.
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