North Korea Rejects Covid-19 Vaccine Doses

September 1, 2021

(Wall Street Journal) – North Korea has turned down roughly three million doses of Covid-19 vaccines developed by Chinese drugmaker Sinovac Biotech Ltd., instructing that they should instead be sent to harder-hit countries. The shots were offered in recent weeks through the Covax initiative, a program financed mostly by Western governments to help lower-income countries obtain vaccines. North Korea’s public health ministry declined the shipment, citing the limited global supply for Covid-19 vaccines and continuing virus surges elsewhere, according to a spokeswoman for Unicef, which helps deliver shots on behalf of Covax. North Korea requested the vaccines be “relocated to severely affected countries,” the spokeswoman said. (Read Full Article)