The chief of Japan ’s Covid-19 vaccination programme on Wednesday denied media reports that jabs for the general public may start in May, as the country battles a third wave that has brought record numbers of infections and serious cases. Domestic media, including public broadcaster NHK, had cited an anonymous source close to the government as saying vaccinations could reach the public as soon as May. “Oh no, NHK, please don’t go around making vaccination roll-out schedules like that. It’s bogus,” administrative reform minister Taro Kono, who was selected to spearhead the vaccine roll-out this week, said on Twitter. The daily Yomiuri said the government was aiming to inoculate most of the population by July, ahead of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics scheduled to start on July 23. The government has said it would prioritise medical workers, the elderly, and those with pre-existing conditions in its vaccine programme expected to start by the end of February but has not provided a timeline beyond that. Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato told a daily news briefing the “timeline for vaccination for the broader population would be decided after the vaccine is approved”. The timing of the campaign is of particular interest given that Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has said vaccines are key to a safe Olympics. Japan has arranged to buy 540 million doses from multiple Western developers including Pfizer Inc, whose vaccine is expected to be the first to win regulatory approval. Covid-19 makes Tokyo Olympics ‘unlikely’, warns London 2012 chief The country has concluded a contract to buy 144 million doses of Pfizer’s vaccine in 2021, the health ministry said on Wednesday, pending domestic approval. That is a 24 million dose increase on an earlier agreement. Japan has had 345,060 coronavirus cases and 4,749 deaths, NHK reported. While its death toll pales in comparison with those in many countries, daily deaths topped 100 for the first time on Tuesday, while the number of people in serious condition reached an all-time high of 1,001, according to Kyodo news. Singapore Airlines trials pre-departure testing service Singapore Airlines has set up pre-departure coronavirus tests for passengers through its booking platforms as part of efforts to revive travel demand destroyed by the pandemic. People flying from Singapore as well as those travelling to the city state from Jakarta and Medan in Indonesia can take tests at clinics and get results within 36 hours. If negative, they can be used for travel, according to a statement from Collinson Group, which is working with Singapore Airlines on the programme. The trial service began on Tuesday and is set to run until mid-March. Collinson said it has performed more than 90,000 Covid-19 tests for travellers in partnership with airlines and several British airports, including London Heathrow. “Our partnership with Singapore Airlines helps to enable the safe reopening of key routes for travellers and is another step forward in our aim to achieve the long-term, safe return of global travel,” Collinson Asia Pacific President Todd Handcock said in the statement. “To restore confidence in travel, the implementation of safe and robust testing protocols remains key.” Like other carriers, Singapore Airlines has been hit hard by the pandemic, particularly as it does not have a domestic market to fall back on while border restrictions eviscerate international travel. Its passenger numbers slumped 82 per cent in 2020. The airline started marketing its first-ever dollar bond last week to shore up its cash position. Pandemic, surging food prices leave many in Asia hungry United Nations agencies are warning that more than 350 million people in the Asia-Pacific region are going hungry as the pandemic destroys jobs and pushes food prices higher. The report issued on Wednesday by four agencies says the pandemic is making it difficult for 1.9 billion people to afford healthy diets. It follows an earlier report that forecast that in a worst-case scenario that 828 million people might suffer from acute hunger because of the crisis. The latest estimate is that nearly 688 million people globally are undernourished, more than half of them in Asia. The largest share is in South Asian countries like Afghanistan , where four in 10 people are malnourished. The report is mostly based on data up to 2019, before the pandemic struck. But it also estimates that an additional 140 million people were likely to have fallen into extreme poverty in 2020 due to the impact of virus outbreaks and lockdowns. By the end of last year, some 265 million were estimated to be facing acute food insecurity. A key factor is food affordability, a problem in wealthy nations like Japan as well as impoverished places like East Timor and Papua New Guinea, said the report issued by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, Unicef, the World Food Program and the World Health Organization . Disruptions and job losses because of the pandemic are preventing families from getting enough to eat in many places. India starts exporting vaccines as its own inoculation targets missed In India , broken supply chains and transport problems, especially during pandemic lockdowns, have prevented surplus grain stocks from reaching all those in need. Day labourers and migrants are the most vulnerable, despite a massive public distribution system that entitles 75 per cent of the rural population and half of those living in cities to subsidised food grains. Across Asia, high prices for fruits, vegetables and dairy products mean many in the region instead end up consuming high-calorie, cheap processed foods that contribute to problems with obesity and diabetes but lack vitamins and minerals. Misinformation hinders India’s vaccine roll-out Hoaxes, doctored videos and far-fetched rumours are emerging as some of the biggest threats to India ’s massive coronavirus vaccine drive, with misinformation blamed for sluggish initial take-ups. There has long been deep distrust of government health programmes throughout the vast nation of 1.3 billion people, particularly among minority communities, making a strong foundation for the proliferation of vaccine “fake news”. Indian authorities are aiming to inoculate 300 million people by July. But doctors in New Delhi and elsewhere say signs following the weekend launch of the campaign have not been good. “People are very scared. We can’t force anyone to take the vaccine, it is voluntary,” said a doctor at a community health centre in neighbouring Haryana state, who asked to remain anonymous. India’s coronavirus vaccination campaign trips at starting line On the first day of the roll-out in the capital, only 53 per cent of people registered for the vaccine came forward , according to the city’s Health Minister Satyendar Jain. National Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, a doctor, has repeatedly called for state and local authorities to refute “rumours and disinformation campaigns”. Like elsewhere around the world, India has endured a torrent of misinformation for the duration of the pandemic. Compounding the situation is the scientific backlash against one of the two vaccines being used in the campaign, indigenously developed “Covaxin”, which was approved before Phase III trials were completed. Further highlighting the importance Indian officials are placing on fighting misinformation, the drugs controller general was forced to dismiss as “absolute rubbish” claims that inoculations could cause infertility – just hours after announcing that two vaccines were approved for use. False claims about infertility have long haunted India’s immunisation efforts, including for polio and measles-rubella, according to leading virologist Gagandeep Kang from the Wellcome Trust Research Laboratory at the Christian Medical College in Tamil Nadu. Disastrous government policies in the past also did not help. In some communities where health care systems were already weak, the top-down implementation of polio vaccinations in the early 2000s triggered memories of forced sterilisations during emergency rule between 1975-77. It sparked fears in some Muslim communities in Uttar Pradesh state that the programme was a form of population control. Similar fears spread in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka in 2016-17 over the measles-rubella vaccine. Bangkok considers lifting restrictions on businesses, travel Thailand ’s capital and some other provinces are considering relaxing restrictions on businesses and travel in the coming weeks amid a decline in new coronavirus cases in certain regions. Chiang Mai, the most-populous province in northern Thailand, lifted a ban on serving alcohol in restaurants from Wednesday, while Bangkok Metropolitan Authority is set to meet on Thursday to consider reopening some businesses including massage parlours and gyms. Thailand, grappling with its biggest Covid-19 outbreak since it first detected a case a year ago, has seen new weekly cases decline in the past week after imposing area-specific measures based on infection risks. The easing of these curbs, which cover three-fourth of the country, may help the economy already devastated by the slump in tourism and exports. Thailand’s Covid-19 caseload nearly tripled in the past month with infections reported from about 80 per cent of its 77 provinces. The country reported 59 new cases on Wednesday, the lowest daily increase in a month, and health ministry has said the majority of the provinces haven’t reported any new infections in the past week. The current area-based control measures have allowed most part of the economy to continue to operate as usual, but looser restrictions mean that it could take longer before the country can virtually eliminate local infections, like it did with a nationwide lockdown last year. Some restrictions may still remain in place as the country starts its vaccine roll-out to reach its target of covering 50 per cent of the population by the end of this year. The Bank of Thailand has said if the current curbs are kept until June with some easing from March, they could shave off as much as 1.5 percentage point from growth this year. On Tuesday, the government approved a US$7 billion cash handout programme for about 31 million people to help cushion the blow from the restrictions. Sri Lanka officials contract virus after drinking ‘miracle’ cure Thousands of people in Sri Lanka have drunk an alleged miracle cure that is supposed to protect against the coronavirus. A minister who imbibed the potion like other high-ranking politicians had to go to hospital. Piyal Nishantha de Silva, who is responsible for women, child development and education in the island state, told reporters and posted on Facebook on Monday that he had contracted the coronavirus. The drink was concocted by an influential so-called holy man who claimed to have received the recipe for it from the Hindu goddess of destruction, Kali. It contained honey, nutmeg, coriander and other herbs and was available for the equivalent of US$13 per bottle. Herbal remedies are widely available in Sri Lanka, and at least 15,000 people turned up at the man’s home over four days of sales in December, a local official said. The holy businessman also sold his miracle cure to companies as well as temples, local media reported. He had also given a sample to politicians and ministers. Even Health Minister Pavithra Wanniarachchi had made use of this, although her own ministry had not approved the potion as a medicine. She was criticised by opposition lawmakers for spreading false hope and encouraging people to go to the holy man en masse. Reporting by Reuters, Bloomberg, Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, DPA