Taiwan should be able to use its new batch of AstraZeneca vaccines on Friday. That was the word from the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) on Tuesday morning.
Taiwan received 410,400 doses of the AZ vaccine on May 19. CECC Deputy Director Chen Tsung-yen said safety checks should be completed Wednesday afternoon. The vaccines will be distributed on Thursday and should be available for use on Friday.
Chen said they would administer them according to priority groups. The first priority would be frontline medical workers serving COVID patients while the second would be all medical workers. The third would be epidemic prevention workers.
The groups following the aforementioned are people with a high risk of COVID-19 exposure due to their occupation; foreign diplomats and athletes representing Taiwan in international competitions; police officers; long-term care facility staff and residents; members of the armed forces and people aged 65 and above.
This batch of AZ vaccine doses was the second batch received from the global vaccine sharing program COVAX. Earlier, Taiwan had received 199,200 doses of the AZ vaccine through COVAX, and another 117,000 doses purchased directly from AstraZeneca.
Taiwan has also signed contracts to purchase nearly 20 million vaccine doses. This includes 5.05 million doses of the Moderna vaccine, 10 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine and 4.76 million doses of unspecified brands through the COVAX program.
The government has also said a locally developed vaccine could start to be available in July.
Taiwan initially had a very low vaccination rate because of concerns over the safety of the AZ vaccine and Taiwan's success in containing COVID-19. But the recent spike in COVID-19 cases has increased people’s willingness to be vaccinated.
As of Monday, 302,698 vaccine doses had been administered in Taiwan. Taiwan has a population of over 23 million people.