SEOUL — South Korea will authorize the use of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine for people aged 65 years and older, Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said on Thursday, a move that will allow the country to ramp up its immunization drive.
The country has been rolling out the vaccine since the last week of February, beginning with the elderly and health workers, but had excluded more than 370,000 over-65s in nursing homes citing a lack of clinical trial data on the age group.
Real-world data from Britain has now shown AstraZeneca and Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccines are both more than 80% effective in preventing hospitalizations in over-80s after one shot.
“Vaccination had been po…
Keep on reading: South Korea extends use of AstraZeneca vaccine to elderly