The South Korean Agency for Disease Control and Prevention on Saturday authorized health workers to obtain extra doses of vials of coronavirus vaccines developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford and by Pfizer-BioNTech.
The decision comes after some healthcare workers who are administering AstraZeneca vaccines reported to authorities that they saw additional doses in the vials from which 10 injections had already been drawn.
According to Jeong Gyeong-shil, an agency official, skilled professionals could get an extra dose or two from each vial by using low-volume syringes designed to reduce waste on medicines and vaccines.
However, authorities will not allow the leftover drug to be combined in multiple vials to create more doses, he added.
The agency had previously authorized the obtaining of 10 injections from each vial of AstraZeneca and six in the case of those of Pfizer-BioNTech.
South Korea, which kicked off its public vaccination campaign on Friday, is administering AstraZeneca’s vaccine to residents and nursing home workers and Pfizer’s to frontline healthcare workers.
The country reported another 405 positives for coronavirus on Saturday.
Separately, Hong Kong received more than 500,000 doses of the vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech on Saturday after a two-day delay in the export procedure, offering a second vaccination option for the city. This vaccine will be offered to some 2.4 million residents who are part of priority groups, such as those over 60 and health workers.
Around 70,000 people enrolled in the vaccination program, which started on Friday, will receive the vaccine developed by Chinese biopharmaceutical company Sinovac.
In Sri Lanka, the Ministry of Health decided to vaccinate the entire population over 30 years of age in the most risky areas of the capital, Colombo, and its suburbs, where infections increased with 466 more in the last 24 hours.
The country started its vaccination campaign in January with health workers. So far, 406,000 people have received the vaccine.