South Korea already plans to secure enough doses to vaccinate 30
million people, or about 60% of the population, but Democratic Party
lawmakers said they would appropriate funds to buy doses for at
least 44 million people.
"The party plans to allocate an additional 1.3 trillion won ($1.2
billion) to next year’s budget," an official with Democratic Party
lawmaker Lee Nak-yon's office told Reuters.
South Korea is battling one of its largest waves of coronavirus
infections yet, fuelled by small outbreaks in the densely populated
capital city of Seoul and surrounding areas.
The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) reported 438
new coronavirus cases as of midnight Sunday, bringing the country's
total to 34,201 cases and 526 deaths.
The government's current vaccine purchase plan puts it well ahead of
a World Health Organization (WHO) goal for the early purchase of
supplies for 20% of most vulnerable people, and the minimum of 40%
agreed by European Union nations, Britain and EU partners for their
populations.
Korean authorities have said they are not in a rush to procure large
numbers of vaccines quickly because the country has succeeded in
keeping infection rates at controllable levels, preferring to wait
and see which vaccines worked best.
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Securing more vaccines of different types is also necessary because their safety
has yet to be guaranteed, the KDCA said on Monday.
The KDCA has said they do not expect to start vaccinating the public until the
second quarter of 2021.
The Korea National Enterprise for Clinical Trials said that as of Monday 3,500
people have pre-registered to participate in clinical trials for coronavirus
experimental vaccines and treatment drugs, though a smaller number will be
selected to participate.
Under the current plan, the government has secured a third of the needed doses
via the COVAX facility, an international COVID-19 vaccine allocation platform
co-led by the WHO, with the remaining doses purchased from private companies.
(Reporting by Sangmi Cha; Writing by Josh Smith; Editing by Stephen Coates)
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