Korea begins evaluation of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine

South Korea's drug safety agency said Monday it has begun the approval process of the novel coronavirus vaccine developed by British-Swedish bio giant AstraZeneca Plc.

AstraZeneca has filed an approval of a two full-dose regime of its COVID-19 vaccine with the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, health officials said.

The approval would mark the country's first immunization campaign.

Two jabs of the AstraZeneca vaccine are needed to build COVID-19 immunity, with the vaccine showing efficacy of 70-90 percent in phase 3 trials.

AstraZeneca has said it will sell the vaccine at US$3 to $5 per dose.

The AstraZeneca vaccine is much cheaper than those developed by other companies and can be kept long term at 2 C to 8 C, while the Pfizer-BioNTech requires a much lower temperature of minus 70 C.

In July last year, SK Bioscience Co., a vaccine unit of South Korea's SK Group, inked a deal with AstraZeneca to produce its vaccines once they are ready.

Last week, the country signed a deal with U.S. biotech company Moderna to buy new coronavirus vaccine doses for 20 million people, with the supply to begin in the second quarter of next year.

Following the deal, the total amount of COVID-19 vaccines South Korea has secured is enough to inoculate 56 million people, more than enough to cover the country's population of 52 million, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).

South Korea has signed deals to buy vaccines for 10 million people from AstraZeneca, 6 million from Johnson Johnson's Janssen and 10 million from Pfizer.

The country has also signed an agreement to secure vaccines for 10 million people from the World Health Organization's global vaccine project, known as COVAX. (Yonhap)