Tokyo Medical Workers Get Second Vaccine Shots
Health care workers in Tokyo have started receiving their second shots of a coronavirus vaccine, about three weeks after receiving their first shots.
Health care workers at medical institutions across the country started receiving their first shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on February 17, as the first priority group in Japan's national vaccination program.
The Tokyo Medical Center started the second round of vaccinations for its staff on Thursday.
The hospital said that by Wednesday, approximately 800 of its doctors, nurses and other staff had received their first shots, and none of them had developed severe allergic reactions, known as anaphylaxis.
One of the nurses who received a second shot on Thursday told an NHK reporter that after her first shot, she had a shoulder pain, and then a fever the next day, but her temperature went down overnight after she took a pill. She said that many of her patients are elderly, and getting vaccinated will give her some peace of mind.
The hospital's director, Araki Kazuhiro, said he feels relieved that the second round of vaccinations has finally started. He said that by the time the second shots have started to take effect, his staff will feel much safer.
The Health Ministry says that as of Wednesday afternoon, nearly 149,000 health care workers across the country had received their first shots, and 35 of them had already received their second shots.
The Ministry says there have been reports of 25 of them developing anaphylaxis, but they have since recovered, or seen their conditions improve.