Japan planning first inoculations within days after vaccine approval

Japan approved its first coronavirus vaccine on Sunday and announced it would begin its vaccination program in the next few days.

The Associated Press reports that Japan approved the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine on Sunday, months after several other countries such as the U.S. and the U.K. authorized it for emergency use.

A Japanese health panel signed off on the Pfizer vaccine on Friday, recommending it for emergency use.

Japan has purchased 144 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine. As the AP reports, it is expected to also receive 50 million of the Moderna vaccine and 120 million of AstraZeneca’s vaccine. These doses should be enough to cover all of Japan’s population of roughly 126 million people.

The vaccine approval process for the coronavirus vaccine was extremely abbreviated, the news service notes, with most taking at least a year in Japan.

According to the AP, 20,000 frontline medical workers are expected to receive their first dose of the vaccine on Wednesday. Afterward, 3.7 million medical workers will be eligible, followed by elderly people. The vaccine will be available to everyone in Japan by June, the outlet reports.

The Tokyo Summer Olympics are expected to begin in June with Japanese officials committing to have the event occur one year after it was initially scheduled to take place.

According to data from the World Health Organization, Japan has confirmed over 414,000 coronavirus cases and nearly 7,000 deaths.