A portion of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines directly purchased by the government have been shipped from an SK Bioscience factory.

According to authorities on Monday, 1-point-06 million doses left the factory in Andong, North Gyeongsang Province, at around 10:00 a.m. for a warehouse in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province. From there, they are to be distributed to vaccination sites across the country.

Out of a total of seven-point-23 million doses, enough to cover three-point-61 million people, that are scheduled to arrive in the country over the second quarter, shipments of one-point-66 million doses have so far been received.

Seoul has so far secured pledges for a total of 192 million vaccine doses, with 20 million coming through the World Health Organization's(WHO) COVAX, and the rest from AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Moderna, Novavax and Johnson and Johnson's Janssen.