Hon Hai Precision Industry Co founder Terry Gou (郭台銘), who is trying to secure Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines for Taiwan, yesterday said the best way to ensure that Taiwan can obtain a sufficient supply of vaccines is to “stop reporting and speculating on the process,” as it could delay proceedings.
Guo in a statement singled out the sharing of “speculative reports” by international media organizations that “cite unknown sources and cannot be confirmed, and which complicate the procurement process.”
Guo’s statement was possibly in response to a Reuters report on Saturday, which cited three unidentified sources as saying that Guo and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) had reached initial agreements to each buy 5 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
The report said that Guo and TSMC had reached an agreement with a subsidiary of Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group Co, which has a contract with BioNTech SE to sell the vaccines in China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.
The report cited Hon Hai as saying that it was continuing to “work hard” on the vaccine purchase plan, while TSMC said that it was still a work in progress and “no further information is available at this time.”
The government late last month formally authorized Hon Hai and TSMC to represent it in negotiations to purchase up to 10 million doses of the vaccine, as Taiwan struggles with a vaccine shortage.
According to the government, it was close to securing 5 million Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines earlier this year, but the deal fell through due to interference from China.
Taiwan has signed deals to purchase about 20 million vaccine doses from abroad, including 5.05 million Moderna doses, 10 million AstraZeneca doses and 4.76 million doses, including the Novavax brand, through the COVAX program.
Only about 1.5 million doses have been delivered to date, but Taiwan has also received donations of 2.5 million Moderna doses from the US and 1.24 million AstraZeneca doses from Japan.
The government has also signed contracts to buy 10 million doses of vaccines from two Taiwanese manufacturers.
As of Saturday, about 2.2 million people in Taiwan, nearly 9.5 percent of its 23.5 million population, had received at least one shot of a COVID-19 vaccine.
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