Korea's 1st Homegrown COVID-19 Vaccine Available for Adults

Korea's first homegrown COVID-19 vaccine, SKYCovione, is available to adults from Monday.

The new vaccine, which requires two jabs at an interval of four weeks, will be administered to those who have never been vaccinated.

Also from Monday, young people aged 12 to 17 become eligible for the U.S.-made Novavax vaccine, which also requires two doses. They used to be given only the Pfizer vaccine, while Novavax was given only to adults over 18.

SKYCovione, or GBP510, was developed by SK Bioscience and the University of Washington's Institute for Protein Design. Like Novavax, it is a recombinant-protein vaccine based on the same technology used to make flu and hepatitis B vaccines.

On Monday morning, the daily tally of new coronavirus infections stood at 37,548, with 56 deaths and 562 severe cases.