It isn’t immediately clear how officials will administer the newly  developed vaccine or how big of a role the shots will have in the next  phase of the pandemic.

Health officials in South Korea on Wednesday approved the country's  first domestically developed COVID-19 vaccine for people 18 years or  older, adding another public health tool in the fight against a  prolonged pandemic.

In clinical trials involving some 4,000 participants in South Korea and  five other countries, SK Bioscience’s two-dose SKYCovione vaccine  appeared to be more effective than the broadly used AstraZeneca

It isn’t immediately clear how officials will administer the newly  developed vaccine or how big of a role the shots will have in the next  phase of the pandemic.

The shots were designed for the original version of the coronavirus, not  the more transmissible omicron variant that wreaked havoc in the  country earlier this year.

U.S. vaccine giants Pfizer and Moderna have been speeding up their  development of booster shots targeting omicron and experts say it’s  possible the virus could evolve again in the coming months.

South Korea’s mass immunization campaign has been mainly dependent on Pfizer and Moderna’s mRNA shots.

But officials say protein vaccines like SKYCovione, which are similar to  shots used for years against the common flu and hepatitis B, could  appeal to people who are hesitant to use vaccines developed with newer  technologies.

“The approval (of SKYCovione) internationally confirms the abilities of  our companies to develop COVID-19 vaccines,” Food and Drug Safety  Minister Oh Yu-kyoung said in a briefing.

She said SK Bioscience is seeking an approval from the World Health  Organization for its shots, which would potentially open export  opportunities.