Singapore Surpasses 50,000 COVID-19 Cases... Vaccine Clinical Trials This Week

Six Months After the First Confirmed Case Announcement on January 23

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Ki Ha-young] Six months after the first confirmed case of the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19) occurred in Singapore, the cumulative number of confirmed cases has surpassed 50,000.

According to local media such as The Straits Times on the 26th, the Singapore Ministry of Health announced that 481 new COVID-19 cases were confirmed on that day, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 50,369. Among the new cases, 5 were local transmissions and 4 were imported cases.

The Ministry of Health explained that most of the remaining cases were migrant workers living in dormitories. The Singapore government announced that a full screening of about 300,000 foreign migrant workers residing in dormitories, who account for more than 90% of COVID-19 patients, is expected to be completed by early next month.

The Straits Times reported that COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials could begin as early as this week in Singapore. The clinical trial will be conducted by administering a COVID-19 vaccine jointly developed by Duke-NUS Medical School and the US-based Arcturus Therapeutics to 108 healthy volunteers of various age groups. Named 'LUNAR-COV19,' this vaccine is one of 25 vaccines worldwide that have either been tested on humans or approved for clinical trials.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.