The expected approval, based on the expert panel's assessment of Japan's own clinical trials of the vaccines as well as those from overseas and the efficacy of the vaccines against COVID-19, will bring the number of jabs available in the country to three, reports Xinhua news agency.
Japan is already using the vaccine developed by US pharmaceutical giant
The country's vaccine rollout has come under fire for lagging well behind the pace in other advanced countries, with Japan's inoculation campaign the slowest among OECD nations and allowing its current fourth wave of infections to spread largely unabated, informed sources have said.
Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has pledged to ramp up inoculations to 1 million shots a day and finish vaccinating the elderly by the end of July.
Japan began inoculating its elderly population of about 36 million in mid-April, but multiple municipalities have said they expect to miss the government's end-of-July deadline, due to a lack of healthcare workers available to administer the shots.
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