Asia - South

The Southeast Asian country has secured about 45 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, enough to cover 70% of the population, compared to 16 million doses of Sinovac's shot.

Vietnam has recorded 40,850 infections and 207 deaths overall - very low figures compared with many countries. Most of the cases have been reported since May.

Vietnam saw a record 2,934 new cases on Wednesday, most of those in Ho Chi Minh City, the epicentre, which has been under stricter movement curbs since last week.

The move also marks a fresh setback to AstraZeneca, which had initial delays in regional production and delivery and hoped to put it back on track from this month and meet its supply commitments to the region.

Taiwan's government has tried for months to buy the vaccine directly from BioNTech and has blamed China, which claims the self-ruled island as its own territory, for nixing an agreement the two sides were due to sign earlier this year.

China's government had said repeatedly that if Taiwan wanted the BioNTech vaccine it had to do it through Fosun.

North Korea has not reported any COVID-19 cases, a position questioned by South Korean and U.S. officials. The reclusive country has, however, imposed strict anti-virus measures, including border closures and domestic travel curbs.

Indonesia has recorded 63,760 coronavirus deaths so far and more than 2.4 million cases in total.

The KDCA estimates the number of confirmed daily cases could reach around 1,400 by the end of this month, or surpass 2,000 if the situation worsens.

In an exceptional measure, India’s pricing regulator the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has allowed a one-time price hike of 50% for three key drugs - ranitidine (antacid), ibuprofen (analgesic), and carbamazepine (epilepsy).

India has officially reported 403,281 deaths out of 29.75 million people who have contracted the virus.

Thousands of impoverished families accuse private hospitals of overcharging them despite cost limits put in place by various state governments.

Seven European Union countries- Germany, Slovenia, Austria, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Spain- and Switzerland have put the Covishield vaccine, shortly after India warned of retaliation when none of its vaccines were added to the ‘Green Pass’.

Taiwan's vaccine orders include 4.76 million doses from COVAX, though so far it has only received slightly more than 600,000 from the scheme, all AstraZeneca PLC shots.

Vietnam has previously approved the AstraZeneca vaccine, Russia's Sputnik V, China's Sinopharm vaccine and the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.