Singapore is discussing the mutual recognition of vaccine certificates with other countries, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said, calling it a necessary step towards resuming global travel. Singapore, a regional travel and tourism hub, has been rolling out its Covid-19 vaccination programme over the last two months. It has approved shots from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. “Even if each of us gears up to secure our own supplies, we must cooperate internationally so that all countries including developing ones have access to vaccines for their people,” Lee said in a video recording posted on Facebook on Wednesday. Coronavirus Singapore: government digs deep on new relief package “We are also discussing mutual recognition of vaccine certification with interested countries,” he said. Lee did not specify the countries. Singapore’s economy, which recorded its worst recession in 2020 due to the pandemic, is staging an uneven recovery this year and a return of more business and tourism travel would be a boost for the city state. Greece, Spain and Britain are among other nations looking into the idea of vaccine certificates or so-called vaccine passports in a bid to revive economies and travel. Malaysia vaccine roll-out starts Malaysia started its Covid-19 vaccination programme on Wednesday, two days ahead of schedule, with Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin the first to receive the shot. Muhyiddin and the nation’s Health director general, as well as several medical staff were among the group to receive the first Pfizer-BioNTech shots. The first phase of the vaccine roll-out will run through April. It involves about 500,000 frontliners comprising health care, defence and security personnel, as well as teachers with co-morbidities, according to the government. The rest of the country will begin receiving jabs from April through February next year. Amid political dysfunction, how did Malaysia pull together its vaccine plan? Malaysia received its first batch of vaccines on Sunday, when 312,390 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech shot landed at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport. The government has secured 66.7 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine from various producers, enough to inoculate nearly 110 per cent of the population. Pfizer remains the only manufacturer to receive the government’s conditional approval for usage, and is set to deliver a total 32 million dosages. Malaysia is also in line to get 12.8 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, 12 million doses of China’s Sinovac vaccine, 6.4 million shots of Sputnik V and 3.5 million doses from CanSinoBio. Vietnam’s first vaccines arrive from South Korea Vietnam received the first batch of 117,000 doses of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine on Wednesday ahead of the planned roll-out of the Southeast Asian country’s vaccination programme from next month. The vaccines, which arrived at Ho Chi Minh City on a flight from South Korea, will be used to inoculate more than 50,000 people who are seen as high risk, the government said. The deputy health minister was at the airport to meet the consignment of vaccines flown in from Seoul, according to media. South Korea’s SK Bioscience has a plant that has been approved to manufacture the AstraZeneca vaccine. Philippines offers nurses in exchange for vaccines from UK, Germany Vietnam said on Tuesday health workers, diplomats and military personnel would be among the first to be vaccinated against Covid-19. The Southeast Asian country with a population of 98 million has said it will receive 60 million vaccine doses this year, including half under the WHO-led COVAX scheme. Vietnam was lauded globally for containing the virus for months using mass testing and strict quarantining, though has faced a recent new wave of infections. The country has recorded 811 new Covid-19 cases since the latest outbreak started last month or about a third of its overall caseload of 2,403 infections since infections were first detected a year ago. Vietnam has reported 35 deaths due to the virus. Japan to start vaccinating elderly on April 12 Japan will begin Covid-19 vaccinations of the elderly on April 12, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said on Wednesday, significantly expanding their roll-out beyond health care workers. Municipalities will begin receiving vaccines for people aged 65 or older, a group of about 36 million people, in the preceding week, Suga told reporters after meeting with members of his Cabinet. Suga said he will decide whether to lift the state of emergency ahead of its scheduled end on March 7 for parts of the country that have seen improvements after hearing from experts on Friday on the appropriate course of action. Pace of Indonesia vaccinations lags target Six weeks into its vaccination programme, Indonesia has administered more than 2 million Sinovac Biotech shots with no reports so far of serious adverse effects. The elderly are starting to get their doses after the country inoculated frontline workers, including those in health care and the military. The pace of vaccinations remains slow at about 50,000 a day, far short of the 500,000 needed to reach Indonesia’s target of more than 180 million this year. Bureaucracy remains a hurdle as registration requires multiple steps and health facilities limit numbers to avoid crowds. India to vaccinate over-60s from March 1 India will start inoculating people above 60, and those with underlying health problems above age 45 in the second phase of its massive vaccination drive from March 1. India’s Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar said the vaccinations will be done in 10,000 public and 20,000 private hospitals. Javadekar told reporters on Wednesday that vaccine shots in government hospitals will be free, but did not say how much it will cost in private hospitals. India started inoculating health workers beginning on January 16. Cases of Covid-19 are increasing in some parts of India after months of a steady nationwide decline In many cities, markets are bustling, roads are crowded and restaurants are nearly full. The country is reporting about 11,000 to 13,000 new cases a day, compared to a peak of nearly 100,000 in September. Reporting by Reuters, Bloomberg, Associated Press, Kyodo