The first shipment of the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine is expected to arrive in Taiwan today or tomorrow, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday.
Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), who is the CECC spokesman, on Monday said the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices in a meeting earlier in the day recommended the Novavax vaccine for people aged 18 or older as first, second or booster shot.
He said as the vaccine has not yet been administered in Taiwan, the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) lot release testing procedures might take about two weeks, so the vaccine would be administered from July 14 at the earliest.
Photo: AP
The FDA on June 17 issued emergency use authorization for the Novavax vaccine for people aged 18 or older as a course of two doses of 0.5ml each and with an interval of at least three weeks.
“The Novavax vaccine is a protein sub-unit vaccine, which generally causes fewer or less severe side effects than mRNA vaccines, including the Moderna and the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines,” Chuang said.
“For unvaccinated people, especially seniors, who are afraid of post-vaccination side effects, getting the Novavax vaccine could be an option,” he said.
The government had announced that it would buy 2 million doses of the Novavax vaccine and the first batch is expected to contain about 500,000 doses, Chuang said, adding that further details would be revealed today.
A total of 81,393 COVID-19 vaccine doses were administered on Monday, bringing the nation’s first, second and booster dose vaccination rates to 91.26 percent, 83.17 percent and 70.05 percent respectively, he said.
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