S. Korea to receive 700,000 doses of Pfizer vaccine in exchange deal with Israel

이스라엘과 첫 백신 스와프 체결…화이자 70만회분 내일 오전 도착 South Korea will get 700-thousand expiring doses of Pfizer vaccines from Israel on Wednesday in a swap deal. This comes at a time when the nation struggled to obtain enough doses in a timely manner... amid tight global supplies. Kim Do-yeon fills us in. A vaccine swap deal has been established between South Korea and Israel for 700,000 doses of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine. The doses are to arrive at Incheon International Airport on Wednesday morning... and Seoul will provide the same amount of doses to Israel starting September when more doses from Pfizer come. The doses coming from Israel has an expiration date of July 31st... and if not used by then... they would have been wasted. Our country has the cold chain and infrastructure to administer all 700,000 Pfizer doses before the expiration date. Also, the deal was established considering the high participation in inoculation which allows for the vaccination campaign to be shorter." When received... the health authorities will conduct quality screenings... and have them ready to be rolled out starting July 13th. Considering the doses were manufactured in Belgium, which also supplies South Korea, the authorities expect no issues in approving them for use. 340,000 doses will be given in Seoul and its surrounding areas, where the COVID-19 situation is the worst in the nation. Local districts will decide on the recipients but will focus on some sectors that have a high amount of contact with other people The rest will be used to give jabs to teachers of Kindergarten to 2nd grade students 15 days faster than planned. The swap deal comes as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said efforts to obtain unused vaccines from other countries started in April. "This vaccine swap was established with the agreed idea that not a single drop of COVID-19 vaccine should be wasted." Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett also said in a statement following the announcement that it's a win-win deal... adding, "together, we will beat the pandemic." As for the return of the 700,000 doses starting in September... by then Seoul plans to have given at least 70 percent of its citizens the first dose... ultimately reaching herd immunity in November. With this plan... the country will be able to make room for those doses to be sent to Israel. Kim Do-yeon, Arirang News. #COVID19 #vaccine #exchange 📣 Arirang News(Facebook) : https://www.facebook.com/arirangtvnews 📣 Arirang News(Twitter) : https://twitter.com/arirangtvnews 📣 News Center(YouTube) : /c/NEWSCENTER_ARIRANGTV 2021-07-06, 22:00 (KST)

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