Taiwan took delivery of its fourth shipment of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine this year Saturday afternoon, with the latest shipment containing 200,400 doses.
The Moderna vaccines arrived at Taoyuan International Airport at 4:31 p.m. on China Airlines cargo flight CI-5245 from Atlanta, Georgia.
According to the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC), the delivery was part of a second deal Taiwan signed in July 2021 with Moderna to procure 35 million doses for 2022-2023.
From that order, 20 million doses are set to be delivered this year.
With the latest shipment, Taiwan has so far received 4.3419 million Moderna doses from the deal.
The newly delivered doses are due to expire on July 29, the CECC said.
At a press briefing Saturday, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (???) said Taiwan was expected to take delivery of another shipment of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine next week, consisting of more than 1 million doses.
Meanwhile, the government is also close to signing a new deal to buy more Pfizer-BioNTech (BNT) COVID-19 vaccines, with just a few minor details to iron out, Chen said.
CECC data as of Friday shows that 84.44 percent of Taiwan’s population of 23.35 million have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, while 79.71 percent have gotten two doses.
Since the introduction of a third dose in late December, 57.42 percent of the population have received a booster dose, and 0.86 percent have been given an additional dose, which is given to immunocompromised people who may not develop the same immune response level after vaccination as others.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel