Ministry of Food and Drug Safety approves special import for 60,000 Pfizer vaccines (total)

Input 2021.02.03 17:00 | Revision 2021.02.03 17:47

The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety announced on the 3rd that it has approved the special import of a vaccine for Pfizer’s novel coronavirus infection (Corona 19). As a result, about 60,000 people (117,000 doses) of Pfizer vaccine can legally enter Korea after mid-month.

The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) applied for special import, which is a procedure for importing Pfizer vaccines into Korea through Cobax Facility the previous day. The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety approved this in less than a day. Special import is a system that permits the import of foreign medicines not approved by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety under special circumstances such as an infectious disease epidemic.

Pfizer vaccines that have been introduced in Korea can be used in practice after obtaining product approval from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety. The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety decides whether or not to approve the vaccine applied by Pfizer Korea through triple expert consultation. As the government announced that the vaccine will be used as the first amount of vaccination for the public, product approval is expected to be achieved without difficulty.

The Pfizer vaccine showed a 95% prophylactic effect in clinical trials and 92% in an analysis of actual Israeli vaccinators. However, regarding the concern that the prevention effect may be inferior to the mutant virus in the UK, South Africa, and Brazil, which are recently prevalent worldwide, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety said, “Additional analysis and review are still needed. “I can’t tell you the result.” A total of 39 people were infected with the domestic mutant virus by the day, and the first case of infection caused by the spread of the local community, not foreign immigrants, occurred for the first time.

The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety believes that adolescents aged 16-18 can get the vaccine. However, this amount will not be vaccinated to adolescents as it is used for medical staff caring for Corona 19 patients.

Pfizer’s vaccine is made with the messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) method, and must be distributed and stored in an environment at minus 70 degrees Celsius. To this end, the government conducted training to safely transport Pfizer vaccines from Incheon International Airport through the Pyeongtaek Logistics Center to the Central Vaccination Center at the National Medical Center in Seoul.