Decision due Sunday on S. Korea’s rollout of AstraZeneca vaccine

South Korea is to announce this afternoon whether it’s going to resume the administering of the AstraZeneca vaccine to those younger than 60.

The rollout for that group has been halted since Wednesday after the reporting of a third case of blood clots.
Eum Ji-young has more.

The South Korean government will decide on Sunday whether or not to resume administering the AstraZeneca vaccine to younger people.

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency will announce its decision Sunday afternoon after discussing the matter with a panel of local experts.”The KDCA is considering safety and scientific evidence as the two most important factors regarding the vaccine. With its administration suspended as a preventive measure, we will throughly consider the opinions of experts in every related field to reach a scientific and safe conclusion about whether or not to continue with vaccinations and when to do so.”

The KDCA announced last Wedensday that they would pause the rollout of AstraZeneca vaccines for people younger than 60. This applied to some 38-thousand people, including those who’ve already gotten their first dose and those who have not.
Also postponed were doses for about 142-thousand people, including instructors at special education schools and daycare centers, as well as school nurses, daycare center nurses and others who work at facilities considered vulnerable. The announcement came after the country reported a third case of blood clots in an AstraZeneca vaccine recipient.
The agency said that particular dose was administered on March 17th and the symptoms occurred 12 days later on the 29th.The country reported on Sunday that 8,7-hundred-10 people had been given doses the day before, bringing the total number of people with a first dose to more than one.one million. This is roughly 2.2-2 percent of the country’s population.
Another 18 cases of side effects were reported on Sunday, bringing the total number to more than 11-thousand.
Eum Ji-young, Arirang News.