TAIPEI, April 3 (Reuters) - Taiwan's first batch of COVID-19
vaccines via the global initiative COVAX will arrive on the
island on Sunday, almost 200,000 doses of the AstraZeneca
shot, Health Minister Chen Shih-chung said on Saturday.
Taiwan, which has kept the pandemic under control thanks to
early and effective prevention, began its vaccination campaign
only last month, also with AstraZeneca shots, after getting
117,000 doses directly from the drugmaker.
Chen told reporters that the latest vaccines were also
manufactured in South Korea and had been due to start arriving
from February, but had been held up by global vaccine supply
problems.
Taiwan will get slightly more than one million AstraZeneca
shots in total via COVAX, he added.
In separate, direct deals with vaccine developers, the
country has agreed to buy 10 million shots from AstraZeneca and
5 million doses from U.S. drugmaker Moderna Inc. It is
also hoping to roll out domestically developed vaccines from the
middle of this year.
Taiwan, which has imposed tough border controls and
quarantine measures to fight the pandemic, has reported 1,046
COVID-19 cases in total, with 10 deaths. It currently only has
43 active cases being treated in hospital.
While Taiwan has been keen to start vaccinations, government
officials have said that, with such a low rate of infection,
there was not the same urgency to getting the shots as other
countries with a far higher toll.
Health workers are getting vaccinated first.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Pravin Char)