Taiwan is banking on a homegrown Covid-19 shot to hurry up its inoculation program because the island and lots of nations battle to safe vaccine de
Taiwan is banking on a homegrown Covid-19 shot to hurry up its inoculation program because the island and lots of nations battle to safe vaccine deliveries from main drug firms.
The domestically produced Covid vaccine from Medigen Vaccine Biologics was rolled out final week, with President Tsai Ing-wen receiving her first shot of the two-dose vaccine final Monday.
Medigen’s vaccine was developed in collaboration with the Nationwide Institutes of Well being within the U.S. The vaccine — just like the one from Novavax — is predicated on a know-how referred to as recombinant protein, which makes use of part of the coronavirus protein to induce an immune response.
Prior to now week, round 600,000 folks in Taiwan have been inoculated with the Medigen vaccine, the corporate’s Chief Govt Charles Chen informed CNBC’s “Squawk Field Asia” on Tuesday.
Some critics have questioned the approval of Medigen’s vaccine. Well being authorities cleared the vaccine for emergency use in July after finishing solely section two scientific trials in Taiwan with no out there efficacy knowledge.
Chen informed CNBC that it was not potential to conduct a “conventional efficacy trial” as a result of Taiwan’s an infection charge is “so low.” Such a trial usually entails a comparability between a vaccinated group and a management group that doesn’t obtain the vaccine, he defined.
As an alternative, Medigen used a way referred to as “immunobridging” to deduce the vaccine’s safety stage based mostly on the immune responses in trial individuals.
“We’ll say that our safety will likely be … the identical and even higher than AstraZeneca,” mentioned Chen.
Medigen mentioned in July that it obtained approval to conduct a section three scientific trial for its Covid vaccine in Paraguay.
Covid vaccine deliveries
Taiwan’s inoculation program obtained off to a gradual begin because it — like many governments globally — confronted challenges in securing Covid vaccine deliveries.
The island, with a inhabitants of roughly 24 million, has obtained greater than 10 million doses of Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines, in keeping with public knowledge compiled by Unicef. That features practically 6 million doses donated by the U.S. and Japan, the information confirmed.
Round 42% of Taiwan’s inhabitants has obtained at the very least one shot of the Covid vaccine, of which fewer than 4% has been absolutely vaccinated, in keeping with statistics compiled by on-line repository Our World in Information.
Whereas Taiwan reported only a few Covid infections final 12 months, the island’s circumstances jumped in Might. Nonetheless, Taiwan’s cumulative case complete stays comparatively low. The variety of day by day reported circumstances within the island has since dropped, not like lots of its Asian neighbors that are nonetheless scuffling with surging infections.
The island has reported 15,995 confirmed circumstances and 835 deaths for the reason that begin of final 12 months, the Taiwan Facilities for Illness Management mentioned Tuesday.
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