The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) is defending its policy of pre-ordering COVID-19 vaccines. Officials say it's the best way to ensure supply for the country. The statement late on Sunday night comes days after Taiwan received its third shipment of AstraZeneca vaccine doses and its first shipment of Moderna.
As of Monday, Taiwan has received 726,600 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine and 150,000 doses from Moderna. That’s only a small fraction of the nearly 30 million doses that Taiwan has signed contracts for.
Taiwan’s government has faced pressure to increase vaccine supply in recent days as authorities scramble to contain an outbreak of COVID-19. On Friday, health authorities signed contracts for ten million doses of vaccines made by two Taiwanese companies. Those vaccines are still in the testing stage and are expected to reach production in July. That has led some to ask why the government is pre-ordering unproven vaccines instead of buying doses already available on the market.
The CECC defends its strategy in the press release, saying that all of the doses Taiwan has bought so far have been pre-ordered. That includes nearly 20 million doses from foreign manufacturers. Authorities signed contracts for all those vaccines while they were still in development.
The CECC says the country needs to pre-order vaccines because the world is facing a shortage of the raw materials needed to make vaccines. That means it takes at least two to three months to get a vaccine from the testing phase to full production. By preordering, the CECC says you can eliminate that delay.
The Command Center also says it is much easier to control the timetable for the delivery of domestic vaccines. As for foreign-made vaccines, Deputy Health Minister Hsueh Jui-yuan says until doses are safely on the plane to Taiwan, there is no way to be sure when they will arrive.