Japan health ministry decides to adjust vaccine distribution

TOKYO - Japan's health ministry has decided to reduce COVID-19 vaccine supplies to some municipalities that are judged to have adequate inventories, local media reported Tuesday.

Japan is stepping up the vaccination rollout currently. However, some municipalities are forced to stop accepting reservations for inoculations because of the shortages of vaccine supply.

Accordingly, Japan's health ministry conducts a review on the allocation of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for the first two weeks of August.

The Japanese government decided on Monday to decrease supplies by 10 percent to municipalities that are deemed to have sufficient vaccines.

The decisions were made based on the comparison between the number of doses received by each municipality on July 4 and the number of administered doses registered in the national database on July 8.

As a result, Osaka City will receive 148 boxes, reduced from 164. Nagoya City will receive 124 boxes, a decrease from 137. Sapporo City will receive 103 boxes, reduced from 114. Sendai City will receive 59 boxes, reduced from 65.

The review has released a total of 298 boxes to be added to the 2,000 boxes that were set aside for prefectural governments. The distribution of those reserved boxes will prioritize municipalities that face the vaccine bottlenecks.