Unused doses of Korea's SKYCovione Covid-19 vaccine to be tossed

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Unused doses of Korea's SKYCovione Covid-19 vaccine to be tossed

The head of Korea's health authorities said Wednesday the unused doses of SKYCovione, a homegrown Covid-19 vaccine developed by SK Bioscience, will be likely discarded due to low demand.
 
"The original monovalent vaccine is for people getting their first or second shots, but most Korean people have completed their first vaccination," Peck Kyong-ran, commissioner of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), said. "Doses that we are planning to buy under an existing deal will be highly likely discarded, as well as those that we've already purchased."
 
The Korean government has agreed to buy 10 million doses of SKYCovione from SK Bioscience, and a first batch of 610,000 doses was shipped in September.
 
But the rest of the promised doses have not yet been handed over as the company recently halted production of the vaccine amid waning demand.
 
"Due to the low vaccination rate, we no longer produce SKYCovione," SK Bioscience said in a filing. "We will resume the production on request of the government."
 
More than 87 percent of Korean people have been vaccinated, while the government is asking them to get a booster dose of the BA.4/BA.5- adapted bivalent vaccine.

Yonhap
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