South Korea Sets Vaccine Target For 60 Percent Of Its Citizens

JAKARTA - South Korea (South Korea) plans to supply the COVID-19 vaccine to 60 percent of its citizens. That percentage is equivalent to 30 million people.

On Tuesday, September 15, the policy owner announced that he was ready to disburse funds of up to US $ 146 million or equivalent to Rp. 2 trillion to obtain a potential vaccine.

Launching Reuters, purchasing vaccines for 60 percent of South Korean people is a way to anticipate the availability of goods. However, the government has not yet dared to make purchases for one hundred percent of the South Korean population.

On the other hand, South Korea still captures uncertainty regarding the safety and efficacy of the vaccines to be supplied. In addition, South Korea does not want to go too far. All-out allocations in vaccine development will limit South Korean investment going forward.

The prime minister (PM) of South Korea, Chung Sye-kyun, also appears to be selective in choosing vaccine manufacturers. However, Chung assured it was solely to secure the supply of vaccines and would buy more as developments occur in the future.

In August, South Korea said it would join forces with other countries through the COVAX financing scheme. This scheme was designed by WHO to ensure fast and equitable access globally to the COVID-19 vaccine.

The plan is for South Korea to buy 20 million doses of vaccine from the COVAX scheme, which is enough for ten million people. The rest, the owner of the government will find a suitable potential vaccine manufacturer private company to provide 40 million doses of vaccine.

Previously, it was noted that South Korea's SK Bioscience had agreed to produce AztraZeneca's vaccine in July. They also collaborated with US drug developer Novavax Inc in the last month to produce components for the COVID-19 vaccine.