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| A vial of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine is pictured in a pharmacy in Boulogne Billancourt, outside Paris, in this March 15 photo. The Korean government signaled that it could place a hold on exports of the AstraZeneca vaccine manufactured in the country amid a global vaccine shortage, but many health experts said the measure would be unrealistic. AP-Yonhap |
By Jun Ji-hye
The government has hinted that it could halt exports of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine manufactured here amid mounting concerns over a global vaccine shortage.
Such a move comes amid growing "vaccine nationalism" around the world, with India and the European Union (EU), among others, having placed restrictions on exports of vaccines, triggering difficulties for many other countries in securing sufficient doses.
Jeong Yoo-jin, a senior official who oversees the procurement of COVID-19 vaccines here, said Tuesday that the government was "considering all possible means to secure ample vaccines at the right time."
The comments were in response to a reporter's question about whether the government was considering curtailing exports of the AstraZeneca vaccine, produced at SK Bioscience's facility in Andong, North Gyeongsang Province.
Jeong's latest comments show a change in the government's position, as she said March 30 that the government was "not considering" halting exports of vaccines.
"There is a need to review the possible impact that a halt of exports could have on Korea as it could have the undue effect of exerting an adverse influence in the country importing other vaccines," Jeong said at the time.
Restrictions on exports of COVID-19 vaccines have recently become a hot topic around the world after India, a major supplier of the AstraZeneca vaccine, placed a temporary hold on all exports of the vaccine to meet domestic demand as infections there have been rising.
The EU has also toughened rules on exporting vaccines, requiring companies to seek export authorization, as part of measures to check if companies are respecting their supply commitments to the EU, according to foreign news agencies.
Experts here, however, said that it would be hard for the government to actually place a hold on exports of the vaccine, given that SK Bioscience is a contract manufacturer of AstraZeneca.
They said if the administration decided to use the vaccine manufactured here for its own residents, no global pharmaceutical firms would want to sign contracts with Korean companies to manufacture their products.
In addition ― from an ethical point of view ― Korea is a member of the World Health Organization, and vaccines produced here have been supplied to developing countries via the COVAX Facility, the World Health Organization-led global vaccine distribution project.
"If Korea actually implements restrictions on exports of the vaccine, the country would be severely criticized in the international community," Kim Woo-joo, an infectious disease professor at Korea University, said.
Experts added that India's COVID-19 situation has been much more serious than that of Korea as the former has reported some 100,000 cases on a daily basis.
Korea added 668 virus cases, including 653 local infections, Tuesday, raising the total caseload to 106,898, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, Wednesday.
This marked a sharp rise from 478 identified the previous day, and the largest since 674 daily infections reported Jan. 7.
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