A delegation from the Korean government to discuss the issue of normalizing the supply of COVID-19 vaccine with American pharmaceutical company Moderna arrived in the United States through Boston Logan International Airport on the morning of the 13th local time.
A delegation of four people, including 2nd Vice Minister of Health and Welfare Kang Do-tae and Blue House Social Policy Secretary Ryu Geun-hyuk, will move to the Moderna headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, to conduct negotiations this afternoon.
At this meeting, the government plans to protest strictly as the vaccine supply disruption occurred only in Moderna, and at the same time receive a promise to prevent recurrence.
Deputy Minister Kang met with reporters before leaving the country and said, "I will express regret for the change in supply.
The delegation plans to return home the following afternoon by flight.
Recently, Moderna reduced the quantity of vaccines that it was supposed to supply to Korea this month due to a production disruption problem, and accordingly, the interval between the first and second doses of mRNA (messenger ribonucleic acid) vaccines such as Moderna and Pfizer was 4 increased by 2 weeks from 6 weeks to 6 weeks.
A total of 40 million doses of vaccines have been supplied by the government from Moderna this year, of which 2455,000 doses have been received so far, which is slightly more than 6% of the total contract volume.