Senior staff nurse Sarah Lim has become the first person in Singapore to receive the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer-BioNTech.

Senior staff nurse Sarah Lim in Singapore receives the shot (Photo: straitstimes.com)

This made Singapore among the first nations in Asia to roll out a vaccination programme against COVID-19.

The 46-year-old nurse working at the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID) is among 30 staff at the centre receiving the vaccination.

They will return for the second dose of the vaccine on 20 January.

Singapore is the first country in Asia to approve the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. It has also signed advance purchase agreements and made early down payments on several other vaccine candidates, including those being developed by US’s Moderna and China-based Sinovac.

It expects to have enough vaccine doses for all 5.7 million people by the third quarter of 2021.

Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Hsien Loong said he and his colleagues would be among the early recipients of the shots.

Meanwhile, Indonesian Minister of Health Budi Sadikin said that the country will secure sufficient vaccine for 181.5 million people next year.

Indonesia has bought 125 million doses of vaccine developed by Sinovac and 130 million others by Novavax of the US.

In addition, it is under talks for the purchase of 100 million doses each of AstraZeneca and Pfizer/BioNTech.

The country is working to obtain up to 100 million doses via COVAX, a WHO-initiated global initiative aimed at providing countries worldwide equitable access to safe and effective vaccines, once they are licensed and approved.

Source: VNA