tokyo a health adviser to japans olympic committee said on tuesday athletes should have the option of getting covid19 vaccines days after public outcry led the government to deny it was making them a priorityjapan on thursday had dismissed a media report that it was considering vaccinating all its olympians by the end of june after the idea sparked a social media uproar amid a slow vaccine rollout for the rest of the populationbut on tuesday the adviser nobuhiko okabe told reuters that although vaccines should not be an obligation they should be available to the athletes who want them okabe is an infectious disease expert who helped guide japans response to the h1n1 outbreak in 2009 and advises on its covid19 responsei think the recommendation should be to be immunized particularly for the athletes said okabe who has held leadership roles in the world health organisationhe said choices by individual athletes to refuse the vaccine for health or religious reasons should be respectedabout 11 million health care workers in japan have received at least their first dose of pfizer incbiontechs vaccineinoculations of the countrys sizable elderly population began on monday but some experts caution that shots for the general populace may not be available until late summer or even winter because of constrained suppliesokabe who heads the kawasaki city institute for public health also said japans commercialisation and licensing hurdles involving drugs and medical products remain a big problem as they could slow its response to health crisis such as pandemicsjapan has approved only one covid19 vaccine so far and about 09 of its population of 126 million has gotten at least one dose of covid19 vaccine compared with 22 in south korea or 36 in the united states according to a reuters tracker