Taipei:
President Tsai Ing-wen got vaccinated with Taiwan’s 1st domestically created COVID-19 vaccine on Monday, providing her private stamp of approval as the island starts rolling out the shot whose approval critics say has been rushed.
The overall health ministry last month authorized the emergency use of Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corp’s COVID-19 vaccine, component of a broader program for inoculation self-sufficiency as delays in vaccine deliveries from international drug businesses have impacted Taiwan and numerous other nations.
Tsai, who had held off applying vaccines from Moderna Inc or AstraZeneca Plc, the present mainstay of Taiwan’s vaccination programme, received her Medigen shot at a hospital in central Taipei, demonstrating her self-confidence in the security of the vaccine.
Tsai chatted to health-related workers as they ready her shot, the entire course of action becoming broadcast live on her Facebook web page, and gave a quick response of “no” to a shouted query from reporters about no matter whether she was nervous.
More than 700,000 persons have signed up so far to get the Medigen vaccine, which needs a second shot 28 days immediately after the 1st one.
The government says the initial expertise of the pandemic last year, when simple supplies such as face masks had been in quick provide, made it realise they had to be in a position to rely on themselves for essential supplies.
Medigen, whose Chinese name actually implies “high-end”, rejects claims its vaccine is either unsafe or that it has been sent to marketplace with undue haste, saying it is powerful and properly tested.
“We have done so many experiments, everyone has seen how safe our vaccine is. There are so few side effects, almost no fever and so on. So I think everyone can rest assured,” Medigen’s Chief Executive Officer Charles Chen told Reuters.
The recombinant protein vaccine has been created in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health in the United States, and the government has ordered an initial 5 million doses. It says no one will be forced to get it.
The vaccine has but to finish clinical trials and no efficacy information is offered, but the government says research so far have shown that antibodies made by the shot have been “no worse than” these made by AstraZeneca’s vaccine.
Taiwan’s primary opposition party, the Kuomintang, or KMT, has mounted a fierce campaign against the shot, with one of its former vice chairmen, Hau Lung-bin, filing a lawsuit to invalidate Medigen’s authorisation, although a court rejected that last week.
The party says it supports domestic vaccines, but that Medigen’s approval has been rushed.
“There is no need for the lives and health of the Taiwanese people to serve as white rats in a laboratory,” Ho Chih-yung, deputy head of the KMT’s international division, told Reuters.
Around 40% of Taiwan’s 23.5 million persons have received at least one shot of either of the two-dose AstraZeneca or Moderna vaccines, although fewer than 5% are totally vaccinated.
However, in contrast to some other components of Asia, Taiwan faces no massive stress to accelerate its vaccination drive, as it is recording only a handful of domestic infections a day.
Taiwan has received more than 10 million vaccine doses to date, and in July ordered a additional 36 million doses of Moderna’s.
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