President Tsai Ing-wen has thanked a team of officials for securing over 5 million doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine for Taiwan. Health Minister Chen Shih-chung confirmed the deal in a press conference on Wednesday.
The US company expects to start delivering the vaccine doses in the middle of this year. Research suggests that Moderna’s vaccine has an efficacy rate of 94 percent.
In a Facebook post late Wednesday, Tsai said that securing such a deal at a time when countries around the world are trying hard to get their own supply of COVID vaccines has not been easy, and Taiwan’s success in getting these doses is down to the hard work of its officials.
She also restated the government’s plan to buy COVID-19 vaccines from multiple foreign manufacturers while continuing work to develop vaccines of its own.
Already, Taiwan has announced that it will also receive 200,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, though it remains unclear when that shipment of vaccine doses will arrive.