Singapore Health Department announced on Wednesday it has opened up its COVID-19 immunization drive to a younger age group after more than half of its elderly population signed up for or received their vaccinations.

 “With the vaccination for the prioritized groups well underway, we are now ready to expand the vaccination programme to younger age groups in the population,” said Health Minister Gan Kim Yong on Wednesday, March 24, at a press conference by the COVID-19 multi-ministry task force.

Residents aged 45 - 59 years can now register to receive vaccines, of which 1.1 million doses have so far been administered in Singapore, with 310,000 people having completed the full regimen, health minister Gan Kim Yong told a media briefing.

“A key factor in how fast we vaccinate our population is the supply of vaccines,” said Mr Gan, adding that the Government will continue to monitor Singapore’s supplies closely.

The trade and tourism reliant nation of 5.7 million people, a regional business center, has recorded no new locally-transmitted coronavirus cases in the past two weeks and has managed to quickly control most of its outbreaks. Singapore has been using vaccines made by Pfizer and BioNTech and Moderna and has taken the delivery of 200,000 doses of CoronaVac, the vaccine of Sinovac Biotech, which has yet to be granted emergency use approval by Singapore authorities.

As of Mar 23, more than 1.1 million COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered, said Mr Gan.   Nearly 800,000 individuals have received at least one dose of the vaccine, with more than 300,000 among them having completed both vaccine doses.

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