Israel and South Korea have signed a deal on swapping corona vaccines. Israeli authorities will soon deliver 700,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to South Koreans, who later return the same amount.
Israel also struck a similar deal with the Palestinian Authority earlier this year, but it failed. The Palestinians thought that the Israeli corona vaccines were too close to the expiration date. So they returned a shipment of vaccines last month.
The Israelis will supply South Koreans with corona vaccines that will expire before the end of the month, reports the Times of Israel news site. South Korea will return the same amount later this year. “This is a win-win situation,” Prime Minister Naftali Bennett beamed.
The South Korean news agency Yonhap writes that the Israeli vaccines are expected on Wednesday morning. “Pfizer vaccines covered by the deal have been used in Israel. So there is no quality problem,” KDCA health chief Jeong Eun-kyeong said.
Israel is one of the world’s leaders in vaccination. At least 5.2 million of the more than 9 million Israelis have been fully vaccinated with two shots. In South Korea, according to Yonhap, 5.3 million people have been fully vaccinated, about 10 percent of the country’s approximately 51 million inhabitants.
