HONG KONG: Hong Kong on Wednesday passed a new law to simplify the procedure of introducing COVID-19 vaccines in an effort to tackle the new wave of outbreak.
Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Carrie Lam said at a press conference that the regulation, passed by the HKSAR Executive Council, allows the secretary for food and health to approve COVID-19 vaccines for emergency use under the government vaccination program.
The new law will be effective immediately for a year.
To greenlight a vaccine, the secretary for food and health will refer to the clinical data, consult an expert committee and take into account if it has been approved by drug authorities outside Hong Kong, Lam said.
The government has ordered a total of 22.5 million doses of vaccines from three providers, enough for Hong Kong’s 7.5 million residents, as each person needs to take two shots for the vaccination.
The first batch of 1 million doses provided by Sinovac Biotech (Hong Kong) are expected to be delivered to Hong Kong in January 2021. Another 1 million doses developed by Fosun Pharma and BioNTech could be shipped to Hong Kong in the first quarter. The third type of vaccine is developed by AstraZeneca in collaboration with the University of Oxford. –PNP
