SEOUL: Health officials in South Korea approved on Wednesday the East Asian country’s first domestically developed Covid-19 vaccine for people who are 18 and older, adding another public health tool in ITS fiGHT AGAINST A PROlonged pandemic.

In clinical trials involving some 4,000 participants in South Korea and five other countries, SK Bioscience’s two-dose SKYCovione vaccine appeared to be more effective than the broadly used AstraZeneca shots in building immunity against infections, officials at South Korea’s Food and Drug Safety Ministry said.

It isn’t immediately clear how officials would administer the new vaccine or how big of a role the shots would have in the next phase of the pandemic. The shots were designed for the original version of the coronavirus, not the more transmissible Omicron variant that wreaked havoc in the

country earlier this year.

United States vaccine giants Pfizer and Moderna have been speeding up their development of booster shots targeting Omicron, and experts say it’s possible the virus could evolve again in the coming months.

South Korea’s mass immunization campaign has been mainly dependent on the two pharmaceutical titans’ mRNA shots. But officials say protein vaccines like SKYCovione, which are similar to shots used for years against the common flu and hepatitis B, could appeal to people who are hesitant to use vaccines developed with newer technologies.

“The approval (of SKYCovione) internationally confirms the abilities of our companies to develop Covid-19 vaccines,” Food and Drug Safety Minister Oh Yukyoung told a briefing. She said SK Bioscience was seeking World Health Organization approval for its shots, which would potentially open export opportunities.

South Korea has eased most of its coronavirus restrictions after battling an Omicron surge earlier this year, but some experts say the country may see another rise in infections despite a high vaccination rate because of waning immunities and the possible emergence of new variants.

The country reported 10,463 new Covid-19 cases on Wednesday, its first daily increase of over 10,000 in 20 days. Health Ministry official Son Youngrae said during a separate briefing it’s too early to tell whether the country was facing another surge after a months-long downward trend.