Moderna vaccine delay for South Korea

Moderna has pushed back its late-July vaccine shipment schedule for South Korea to August due to supply problems that will affect other countries waiting on Moderna shots, a South Korean health official says.

The issue is due to the vaccine manufacturing process involving Swiss contract drugmaker Lonza and a Spain-based company which does bottling work for the Moderna vaccine, the official, Lee Sang-won, told a briefing on Tuesday.

Health officials said Moderna had informed South Korea that the issue would affect other countries that receive supplies from them.

Moderna and Lonza did not immediately reply to Reuters' requests for comments.

South Korea has a contract for 40 million doses of the Moderna vaccine, of which about 1.1 million have arrived so far.

Moderna is also set to supply Australia with 25 million doses from late 2021. The agreement is for 10 million doses of their current vaccine, and 15 million doses of booster or variant-specific versions of the vaccine.

with AAP