The first shipment of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine for young children has arrived and would be delivered to local governments on July 21, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday. It also reported 34,577 new COVID-19 cases and 95 deaths.
The batch of 450,000 vaccine doses arrived in the morning and has been transported to a logistics center for lot release testing, said Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), who is the CECC’s spokesman.
Testing is expected to be completed by July 20 and deliveries to local governments would begin on July 21, he said.
Photo: CNA
The vaccines would be offered as first doses for children aged from six months to five years, and the expiration date is Dec. 25, he added.
Vaccination sites would be arranged by local governments, and might include hospitals, clinics, preschools and temporary vaccine stations, Chuang said.
Local governments are encouraged to keep vaccine stations open in the evenings and weekends for the convenience of working parents, he added.
He said 34,499 new local and 78 imported COVID-19 cases were confirmed yesterday, a decline of 7,705 from Wednesday last week.
Although daily caseloads are still falling, the pace of decline has slowed slightly, he said.
Most of the new cases were reported in New Taipei City at 5,324, followed by Taichung with 4,669 cases, Taoyuan with 3,687, Kaohsiung with 3,608, Taipei with 3,110, Tainan with 2,902, Changhua County with 1,880, Pingtung County with 1,362, and 14 other cities and counties with fewer than 1,000 cases.
CDC Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞), deputy head of the CECC’s medical response division, said the youngest death reported yesterday was a one-year-old, who had a congenital nervous system disorder and died one day after the onset of COVID-19 symptoms.
Three new cases of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) were also confirmed.
They were diagnosed with COVID-19 early last month, but developed symptoms late in the month, including continuous fever, he said.
The youngest of them is eight months old. The oldest — a 12-year-old girl — was being treated at an intensive care unit in a stable condition, he added.
Lo said 30 children have so far this year developed severe illness from MIS-C following acute COVID-19 infection, and 88 have developed severe illness from COVID-19, including 22 deaths.
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