COVID-19 News: Singapore, Korea, and China Accelerate Vaccine Approval, Indonesia Devises Detection Strategies

Vaccine is one of the best weapons to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, but it still needs a close examination of efficacy and safety to receive government approval. COVID-19 detection devices such as PCR screening are equally important as vaccines to learn the virus’s current spread. This week, several Asian countries quickened the pace of vaccine approvals and made moves on quick screening of COVID-19.

First in Asia! Singapore Approves Moderna Vaccine

The Singapore Health Sciences Authority (HSA) approved the interim authorization of Moderna’s vaccine under the Pandemic Special Access Route (PSAR), becoming the first country in Asia to do so.

The approval will further boost Singapore’s vaccination plan, which began on December 30th, prioritizing healthcare workers followed by elderly over 70 years old.

Moderna’s vaccine is the second vaccine to be approved in Singapore, while Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine got its approval in December 2020.

Indonesia Places COVID-19 Breath Detectors in Train Station

Working with the University of Gadjah Mada (UGM), Indonesia deployed COVID-19 breath test detectors, GeNose, at the Pasar Senen train station in Jakarta and Tugu Station in Yogyakarta.

With methods totally different from PCR tests or rapid blood tests, GeNose can identify the COVID-19 virus in a person’s respiratory tract with over 95% accuracy. The person only needs to blow in the bag and wait two minutes for the result.

The device was previously approved for distribution in December 2020 and is expected to officially launch on May 2nd. Indonesia began its vaccination plan in January 2021.

South Korea Approves Pfizer Vaccines Imported from COVAX

COVAX announced its plan to deliver over 330 million vaccines from several manufacturers to 145 countries in the first round in the first half of 2021.

As one of the allocated countries, South Korea will receive 117,000 doses of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines in mid-February. However, with the Pfizer vaccine not yet approved in the country, Korea’s drug safety minister Kim Gang-lip announced special approvals to the imported vaccines in a news conference.

The 117,000 vaccines will be used in the Korean’s vaccination plan scheduled in late February. In addition, prime minister Chung Sye-kyun revamped the social distancing rule to stop local transmission of the new coronavirus as cases rose up.

Sinopharm Vaccine Works on COVID-19 Variants but with Less Efficacy

Sinopharm developed the first vaccine that China conditionally approved for public use with 79% efficacy. It launched a small sample lab study to test two vaccines, BBIBP-CorV from Sinopharm and ZF2001 from China’s Anhui Zhifei Longcom, on the COVID-19 variant first discovered in South Africa.

The result, published on the preprint server BioRxiv this week, demonstrated that both vaccines could target the variant but with weaker efficacy compared to the original COVID-19 virus.

Besides, as requested by the World Health Organization (WHO), China will provide 10 million vaccines to COVAX as the plan to allocate vaccines to countries is able to begin.

Related Article: Expecting Lunar New Year Travel Rush, China Races to Build Giant Quarantine Center

References

1. https://investors.modernatx.com/news-releases/news-release-details/singapore-health-sciences-authority-hsa-approves-interim
2. https://www.gavi.org/sites/default/files/covid/covax/COVAX-Interim-Distribution-Forecast.pdf
3. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.02.01.429069v1.full.pdf
4. https://ugm.ac.id/en/news/20718-yogyakarta-tugu-station-starts-to-use-genose-for-covid-19-screening

Author

Tyler Chen

"Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died."- Erma Bombeck