Taiwan has signed an agreement with the American pharmaceutical company Moderna to buy five million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine. Health Minister Chen Shih-chung confirmed the deal in a press conference on Wednesday.
Chen’s words come after Moderna announced the agreement on Tuesday. The American company says it has agreed deals with Taiwan and Colombia. It expects to start delivering the vaccine doses in the middle of this year.
In December last year Moderna’s vaccine became the second COVID-19 vaccination to receive emergency authorization from US authorities. Research suggests it has an efficacy rate of 94 percent.
Minister Chen says that authorities will confirm the precise timetable for delivering the vaccine at a later date. That’s because global vaccine supplies are already severely stretched. But Chen expects there will be ‘no problem’ and the vaccine should arrive in the middle of the year.
The confirmation of the deal with Moderna comes after the news on Monday that Taiwan will receive 200,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine. Those doses will come in the first round of deliveries by COVAX, an international vaccine distribution initiative. Chen says it is still unclear when that shipment of vaccines will arrive.