Daegu-arranged Pfizer vaccine offer improper: gov't

By Jun Ji-hye

With Daegu City having asked the central government to purchase Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccines arranged by the city administration, the government said those vaccines are believed to come from an irregular trade path, thus they cannot be supplied to Korea.

Sohn Young-rae, spokesman for the Ministry of Health and Welfare, said Wednesday, “We need to check more details, but we have confirmed that the vaccines cannot be supplied to Korea as they come from an improper path.”

The comments came after Daegu City and doctors' and medical institutions' associations in the city claimed recently that they had been pushing to obtain Pfizer vaccines for 30 million people through German company BioNTech, which teamed up with Pfizer on its vaccine.

They have also sent the health ministry relevant documents showing that those vaccines can be delivered within three weeks.

Daegu Mayor Kwon Young-jin said during a regular COVID-19 response meeting in the city, Monday, “We are expecting tangible results soon, but it would be difficult for Daegu City to purchase those vaccines directly,” calling on the central government to sign a final contract.

But the government said the party that had offered the vaccines to Daegu was neither Pfizer nor BioNTech, but a German trading company.

“We have talked to Pfizer's head office and confirmed that only Pfizer possesses the right to sell vaccines to Korea,” Sohn said.

According to Sohn, Pfizer said it makes vaccine supply contracts only with governments or international institutions such as COVAX, so it is checking how a private trading company secured the vaccine.

“Pfizer is carrying out its own probe to see if the vaccines the German company vowed to offer were genuine, and may take legal action in accordance with its findings.”

Sohn said the government has also received similar offers from some foreign private companies and individuals that claimed to have secured AstraZeneca vaccines, which upon closer inspection were found to be false.

Pfizer Korea also issued a statement to stress the pharmaceutical company has never allowed any entity that is not a central government of a country or an international organization, to import, sell or distribute its vaccine.

Former Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun, who led the country's vaccine procurement plan before he was replaced with current Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum in April, criticized Daegu City, calling the city government's move unilateral, which could exert an adverse influence on the country's ongoing efforts to secure vaccines stably.

“Incorrect and unconfirmed information can worsen public confusion about vaccine procurement,” he wrote on Facebook. “I ask people to trust the government as it has consulted with global pharmaceutical companies to secure sufficient vaccines.”