Japan to start vaccinating against COVID-19 next week

Japan will begin administering the coronavirus vaccine next week, and front-line medical experts will be the first to receive it.

“We will do our best to prepare for everything,” Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said Wednesday at a meeting of ruling party officials where he confirmed the deadline for the first inoculations.

Suga requested the collaboration of doctors, nurses and municipalities to carry out the mass vaccination campaign without problems.

A committee of the Ministry of Health is expected to give the green light to the first vaccine against COVID-19, the one developed by the pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and BioNTech, in a few days.

Japan also has agreements with AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford and with Moderna Inc. to acquire a total of more than 310 million doses, enough to vaccinate its entire population. Pfizer and BioNTech will provide 144 million.

Japanese authorities have expressed concern about the uncertainty in the supply of vaccines from Europe.

Vaccines are seen as key to celebrating the long-delayed Tokyo Olympics this summer.

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