Japan adjusts vaccine distribution

Japan’s health ministry said it decided to reduce COVID-19 vaccine supplies to some municipalities that were judged to have adequate inventories.

This was part of measures taken to step up the vaccination rollout in the country, local media reported on Tuesday.

However, some municipalities were forced to stop accepting reservations for inoculations because of the shortages of vaccine supply.

Accordingly, Japan’s health ministry conducted a review on the allocation of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for the first two weeks of August.

The Japanese government earlier on Monday decided to decrease supplies by 10 per cent to municipalities that were deemed to have sufficient vaccines.

The decision was made based on the comparison between the number of doses received by each municipality on July 4, and the number of administered doses registered in the national database on July 8.

As a result, Osaka City will receive 148 boxes, reduced from 164.

Nagoya City will receive 124 boxes, a decrease from 137.

While Sapporo City will receive 103 boxes, reduced from 114 and Sendai City will receive 59 boxes, reduced from 65.

The review had released a total of 298 boxes to be added to the 2,000 boxes that were set aside for prefectural governments.

The distribution of those reserved boxes will prioritise municipalities that face the vaccine bottlenecks.