As the Japanese health ministry announced earlier that it will start the mass inoculation campaign by June 2021, the country’s health minister Tamura Norihisa said at a press conference that the government aims to prioritize vaccination for the vulnerable older population aged 65 and above. He told reporters that at least 36 million occupants in the nursing homes located in different prefectures of Japan, of which an estimated 8.2 million are people with co-morbidities, such as heart, kidney, and lung ailment, will get vaccinated in the first stage of the mass vaccination campaign.
Norihisa added that Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare was working in collaboration with SNS in conducting a nationwide survey to identify the more vulnerable population and compile a 2020 year-end report to allocate urgent remedies such as vaccination, housing stimulus, and other public and financial welfare benefits. He added, that the Japanese government was reviewing the adverse events associated with the Pfizer vaccines that were reported in the US such as anaphylactic symptoms, post which Japan will approve vaccines for the emergency use authorization, and begin the vaccination programme. Japan’s frontline healthcare workers and the medics will be injected with the first jabs for protection, the Japanese health minister added. Vaccine purchases will be made by the government using reserve funds from the budget of the current fiscal year to March 2021.
