SINGAPORE (Reuters) – A 46-year-old nurse became the first person in Singapore to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday, making the city among the first Asian countries to start infectious campaign against the coronavirus.
Sarah Lim, a senior staff nurse at the National Center for Infectious Diseases, was the first of more than 30 employees at the center to receive the vaccine Wednesday, the health ministry said. They will return for the second dose of the vaccine on 20 January.
“I feel very, very grateful and grateful to be the first vaccine in Singapore,” said Lim, who helps screen COVID-19 suspects. In remarks made by the health ministry, she said she hoped to encourage others to get vaccinated.
Singapore is the first country in Asia to have approved the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. It has also signed advance purchase agreements and made early payments to several other vaccine candidates, including those being developed by Moderna and Sinovac.
Vaccine doses are expected to be sufficient for every 5.7 million people by the third quarter of 2021.
Singapore took swift action after the first reported cases of the virus and although it was blinded by tens of thousands of cases in migrant workers’ bedrooms, they have reported only a handful of new cases over the past two months. past. It has one of the lowest COVID-19 mortality rates in the world; only 29 people have died from the virus.
To show that the vaccine is safe, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, 68, said he and his colleagues would be among those who received the early sightings. They will be free and voluntary, but the government is encouraging all medically certified residents to take them.
China is including certain groups of people deemed to be at high risk of infection, such as medical workers and border inspectors, under an emergency use program that began in July. His vaccines are still in late-stage clinical trials.
In Japan and South Korea, the U.S. military has embarked on the first wave of COVID-19 vaccines, giving priority to front-line medical workers.
Some Philippine soldiers and cabinet ministers have received COVID-19 vaccine injections even before regulatory approval was obtained.