Korea started rolling out Covid-19 vaccines for physicians and nurses on Friday but medical, and nursing school students training at hospitals need them, too, a medical school group said.

The Korea Association of Medical Colleges (KAMC) said to the health authorities that not only medical students but dental, nursing, and Oriental medicine students who receive clinical training should be included in Covid-19 vaccination priority groups.

According to the government’s vaccination plan, employees at Covid-19 treating hospitals and high-risk medical institutions will get the first inoculation from February and March. Health professionals at other medical institutions and pharmacies can get the shots from May.

Medical school students training at hospitals can receive the vaccination in July when the general public starts to get the vaccines.

Japan added students at medical and nursing schools who receive clinical training to the first vaccination group of health professionals upon the Japanese medical community's request.

If a Japanese medical student has a chance of contacting a Covid-19 patient during clinical training, the medical institution can give a Covid-19 vaccine to the student at its discretion. Japan started giving Pfizer vaccine on Feb. 17.

Han Hee-chul, chairman of the board of directors of the KAMC, told Korea Biomedical Review that medical institutions should be allowed to administer Covid-19 vaccines to medical school students training at the institution.

“We discussed with four groups to request to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency to vaccinate students at medical, dental, nursing, and Oriental medicine schools,” Han said.

Trainee students work together with medical staff and patients, but they are in a blind spot in Covid-19 vaccination, Han said.

“If the government sees a situation where a student has close contact with patients, it will be appropriate to take measures equivalent to those for physicians and nurses,” he said.

Han went on to say that the government should pay more attention to the “health professionals of the future.”

Medical school students are doctors of the future who should learn more with physicians, but it was a pity that the government has little interest in them because they had to deal with realistic problems, he added.