Japan's PM requests more COVID vaccines

TOKYO — Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga asked U.S. drugmaker Pfizer Inc on Saturday to provide additional supplies of COVID19 vaccine to Japan this year.

Pfizer confirmed in an email that its CEO, Albert Bourla, met with Suga virtually to discuss vaccine supply on the last day of Suga's three-day visit to Washington. The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is the only one approved in Japan.

Japan's Nikkei newspaper reported earlier that Suga asked Pfizer to provide more vaccine doses.

With fewer than 100 days until the Olympics are due to start in Tokyo, Japan expanded quasi-emergency measures to 10 regions on Friday as a fourth wave of COVID-19 cases spread.

Some experts cautioned that the general population may not have access to vaccination until late summer or even winter because of constrained supplies.

Japan was among the last major economies to begin COVID-19 inoculations when it started in mid-February, after domestic trials to ensure safety.

Only 0.9 per cent of the Japanese public received their first vaccine shot as of Friday, compared with 2.5 per cent in South Korea, and 48 per cent in the U.K.

Also, International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach will visit Japan in May. Bach is expected to back Japan's commitment to safely host the Summer Games.

“We are aware of President Bach's intention to come to Japan and would welcome such a visit,” the Tokyo Olympic organizing committee said in a statement. “However, nothing concrete has been decided.”

Japan's top health experts have acknowledged that the COVID-19 pandemic has entered a fourth wave.

Tokyo's Olympics chief said on Friday that Japan was committed to holding a safe Games this summer, as a surge in COVID-19 cases prompted an expansion of contagion controls and with fresh calls for the Games to again be postponed or cancelled.