UPDATE 3-S.Korea strikes COVID-19 vaccine deals for 23 mln people as roll-out set to start slowly

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By Hyonhee Shin and Josh Smith
SEOUL, Feb 16 (Reuters) - South Korea has arranged to buy
coronavirus vaccines for 23 million more people, its prime
minister said on Tuesday, a day after authorities decided to
scale back initial vaccination plans, citing delays and efficacy
concerns.
Preparing for an inoculation drive that is set to begin on
Feb.26, South Korea had already secured supply agreements for
enough doses for 56 million, though it has a population of 52
million.
But the vaccination programme is set to get off to a slower
start, as some of the vaccines acquired have not yet proven
sufficiently effective against new strains of COVID-19, while
some manufacturers may not be able to deliver on time due to
production problems.
To overcome those issues, South Korea has struck additional
deals with Novavax Inc NVAX.O for enough vaccines to cover 20
million people and with Pfizer to cover a further 3 million,
Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said, making the total supply
enough to cover 79 million people.
"The government has been working to bring in sufficient
early supplies, but there is growing uncertainty over our plan
for the first half due to production issues with global
drugmakers and international competition to adopt more
vaccines," he told a televised meeting.
South Korea aims to begin by inoculating healthcare workers
and the elderly. But authorities said on Monday they would not
use AstraZeneca (NASDAQ:AZN) AZN.L vaccines on people aged 65 and older,
reversing an earlier decision, because of insufficient efficacy
data.
Aside from AstraZeneca, South Korea has also reached
agreements with COVAX, Pfizer PFE.N /BioNTech BNTX.O , Moderna
MRNA.O , and Johnson & Johnson JNJ.N for the supply of their
vaccines.
The government has cut its first-quarter vaccination target
from 1.3 million to less than 760,000.
U.S.-based Novavax issued a statement that it has signed a
license agreement with South Korea manufacturer SK Bioscience to
produce 40 million doses of its vaccines for South Korea and
significantly boost production capacity. Two doses of the
Novavax vaccine are needed per person. SK Bioscience said it has exclusive rights to manufacture
and sell the vaccine in South Korea and also secured rights to
sell it in several Southeast Asian countries.
The director of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention
Agency (KDCA), Jeong Eun-kyeong, said the reduced first-quarter
target was not expected to affect the goal of achieving "herd
immunity" by November, though some independent health experts
doubt whether it can be done so fast.
The additional Pfizer deal for 6 million doses, with two
needed per person, was intended to help meet that goal, and the
U.S. drugmaker agreed to move up the shipment date for another 1
million doses to the second quarter, Chung said.
The KDCA reported 457 additional coronavirus cases as of
midnight on Monday, as the daily tally rebounds to the 400s in
four days amid increased testing following last week's Lunar New
Year holidays.
South Korea's total infections rose to 84,325 with 1,534
deaths.