Taiwan on Sunday received its first batch of Covid-19 vaccines through the global vaccine-sharing initiative COVAX, DPA news agency reported.
The 199,200 doses of a total 1.02 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccine allocated for Taiwan, were shipped by Taiwanese carrier China Airlines. After arrival, the vaccines were soon moved to a cold chain warehouse at the airport for storage.
The Central Epidemic Control Center (CECC) announced the shipping late Saturday after the flight took off from Amsterdam.
The CECC said on Sunday that the expiry date of this batch of the two-shot vaccine received through COVAX is May 31.
Taiwan on March 3 received 117,000 doses, commercially supplied by AstraZeneca, with an expiry date of June 15.
"So we will speed up the process in order to give shots to more people," Health and Welfare Minister Chen Shih-chung, who heads the CECC, told a news conference late Saturday.
As of Saturday, 17,056 people in Taiwan, mostly front-line health care workers, had received their first shot. The CECC said on Saturday that there had been 63 adverse events, including seven suspected unexpected serious one and a case involving suspected serious allergy.
As of Saturday, Taiwan, an island of 23.6 million people, has reported 1,045 Covid-19 cases, including 77 locally transmitted ones, with 10 virus-related deaths.
