TOKYO, Dec 24 (Reuters) - Japan has agreed to buy a further 18 million doses of Moderna Inc's COVID-19 vaccine, the health ministry said on Friday, as it looks to speed up a booster programme that has covered just 0.3% of the population so far.
As concerns grow about the increasing spread of the Omicron variant of coronavirus, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida unveiled a plan last week to speed up booster doses for about 31 million healthcare workers and at-risk elderly people.
The purchase in the first quarter of 2022 will take to 93 million the total of Moderna doses available next year, the ministry said in a statement.
The Moderna shots are to be imported by Takeda Pharmaceutical Co , which has also contracted to sell 150 million doses of the Novavax Inc vaccine to the government.
Japan is also set to receive 120 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, used for the majority of its inoculations until now.
After a relatively late start, Japan has fully inoculated almost 80% of its population of 126 million, for the highest such rate among Group of Seven economies, but just 0.3% have received a third dose as a booster.