Coronavirus is surging again in countries across the Asia-Pacific region, forcing states of emergency and a fresh spate of lockdowns to prevent it taking hold

  • The South-East Asia Region continues to report falling numbers of new cases and deaths, a decline observed since September 2020. The three countries reporting the highest numbers of new cases and new deaths were India, Indonesia and Bangladesh. 
  • The Western Pacific Region reported an increase in the number of new cases by 14% (over 81 000) and new deaths by 35% (over 1100) in the past week. The three countries reporting the highest numbers of new cases this week were Japan, Malaysia and the Philippines. 

Bangladesh and Indonesia continue to report community transmission, while seven member states namely India, Nepal, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Bhutan and Thailand report clusters of cases Timor-Leste reported sporadic cases and Democratic People’s Republic of Korea continues to report ‘No Cases’

Strengthening vital partnerships in the Pacific to support health sector responses to COVID-19

The EU,  WHO, WFP and the Pacific Community signed an agreement that will strengthen their existing partnership to support health sector responses to COVID-19 across the Pacific. This follows the new Financing Agreement the EU and the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat (PIFS) signed, to repurpose funding to support the Pacific’s response to COVID-19.

Under the EU-SPC-WFP-WHO agreement, the EU will contribute over US$24 million of the funding repurposed under the EU-PIFS Financing Agreement to support Cook Islands, Kiribati, Fiji, the Republic of Marshall Island, the Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu to mitigate the impacts of COVID-19. Read more on The WHO website.

Update on Pandemic Vaccine Deployment

  • The support to Member States for development of National Deployment and Vaccination Plans (NDVP) and preparations for COVID-19 vaccination including identification of priority groups, cold chain expansion, capacity building and communication/demand generation is ongoing

  • Six Member States have submitted expression of interest and NDVPs to the COVAX facility to be considered for the first wave of allocation of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine • Eight Member States submitted updated country vaccine introduction readiness assessment tool (VIRAT/VRAF)

  • Many countries currently conduct negotiations for bilateral deals to provide COVID-19 vaccines to a target beyond the 20% of their populations expected to be covered by the COVAX facility

  • A Regional Review Committee was established to review the country eligibility to be included in the first wave of vaccine allocation

  • Third meeting of the coordination subgroup of the regional working group on COVID-19 vaccines, was held on 19 January 2021 with participation of WHO, UNICEF, ADB, WB, CDC, UNDP, Rotary and IFRC and other members

  • Around USD 8.4 million were provided by Gavi for technical support to SEAR countries

  • The government of Indonesia officially launched its national COVID-19 vaccination on 13 January 2021. Around 1.4 million health workers are expected to receive vaccination in the first phase. Also, the governor of Jakarta announced complete large-scale social restrictions (PSBB) until 25 January 2021 in view of rising number of COVID-19 cases and to prevent hospitals being overwhelmemed

  • India initiated COVID-19 vaccination on 16 January 2021 using the Covishield vaccine which was manufactured by the Serum Institute of India and the Covaxin vaccine manufactured by the Bharat Biotech targeting priority health workers. Government of India has announced to provide COVID-19 vaccines to Bhutan, Maldives, Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar and Seychelles from 20 January 2021. Bhutan and Maldives have already received vaccines and India is now set to dispatch Indian made COVID-19 vaccines to Nepal and Bangladesh.

  • In Bangladesh, a medical firm (Globe Biotech) applied for permission to conduct clinical trial pertaining to a local vaccine ‘Bongovax’from the Bangladesh Medical Research Council.

  • In Maldives the Health Emergency Operations Centre (HEOC) launched a special portal for registration of COVID-19 vaccine in preparation for vaccine deployment plan.

  • Sri Lanka, the Ministry of Health (MoH) submitted the National Vaccination Deployment Plan (NVDP) to the COVAX facility on 18 January 2021

Each individual country's coronavirus status can be accessed via the Asean Briefing website, which is updated daily with the cases and deaths of each country in Asia.