Moderna's 'BA.1' Targeted Vaccine Introduced in Korea from Today... 1.61 Million Doses (Update)

Sequential Introduction of 805,000 Doses on the 15th and 806,000 Doses on the 17th

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Young-won] The initial shipment of Moderna's bivalent vaccine targeting Omicron BA.1 will be introduced to South Korea starting today.

On the 15th, the Central Disease Control Headquarters announced that 805,000 doses will arrive on the same day, followed by 806,000 doses on the 17th, both scheduled to be delivered sequentially to the country.

After the vaccine's arrival, once the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety grants national release approval, it is expected to be used for additional vaccinations starting in the winter season of October. Baek Kyung-ran, Commissioner of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, stated, "We will prepare detailed implementation plans and announce them by the end of September."

Moderna's bivalent vaccine, 'Moderna Spikevax bivalent 2-dose,' contains antigens from the original Wuhan strain and BA.1, and received import approval from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety on the 8th.

According to Moderna, although this vaccine was developed targeting BA.1, it has also shown efficacy against the BA.4 and BA.5 variants. Moderna reported that in participants who had completed their third vaccine dose, a fourth dose of 50μg Spikevax bivalent 2-dose was administered, and one month later, neutralizing antibody responses were measured, showing a 6.3-fold increase in protective effect against BA.4 and BA.5 compared to those who had only received three doses.

Additionally, the Central Disease Control Headquarters stated that since last year, a total of 4.86 million doses of vaccines expected to be unused domestically have been donated to nine countries. This includes 3.339 million doses last year and 6.294 million doses this year. Of the 4.83 million AstraZeneca (AZ) vaccine doses received through COVAX, all were donated back to COVAX without domestic introduction.

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