About 450,000 doses of Moderna’s COVID-19 bivalent vaccine have been administered, and as eligibility was expanded yesterday, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said that it might order more if many people are willing to receive the jab.
Moderna’s bivalent vaccine targets the original SARS-CoV-2 strain as well as the Omicron BA.1 subvariant.
Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), the CECC’s spokesman, said that 1,319 children aged six months to four years received a COVID-19 vaccine dose on Monday, bringing the age group’s first and second-dose vaccination rates to 40.8 percent and 11.9 percent respectively.
Photo: Tsai Shu-yuan, Taipei Times
He said 11,163 people received Moderna’s bivalent booster on Sunday, taking the total number of doses administered to more than 449,000 doses.
Eligibility for the bivalent vaccine was expanded to include people aged 18 to 49 who received their last dose of a COVID-19 vaccine at least three months (84 days) ago.
Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝), who heads the CECC, said there are still about 2.55 million doses of the bivalent vaccine in stock.
After eligibility is expanded, the center would observe people’s willingness to get vaccinated and decide whether to order more doses, Wang said.
Asked if people aged 18 to 49 can get a second booster shot that is not a bivalent COVID-19 vaccine, Chuang said that the center has been collecting data on other countries’ vaccination policies, but they have different recommendations.
The data were yesterday to be delivered to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) for review, and the CECC would announce its decision as soon as the committee makes a recommendation, he said.
On Friday last week, a meeting was held at the Ministry of Health and Welfare to discuss a proposal to expand eligibility for a government-funded prescription of Chingguan Yihau (清冠一號), or NRICM101, a traditional herbal formula used to treat COVID-19 that was developed in Taiwan.
The ministry on Sept. 15 reduced the number of groups eligible for the prescription.
CDC Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) yesterday said that those at the meeting had come to a preliminary conclusion: Eligibility should be expanded to include COVID-19 patients with any of four conditions.
They include postpartum women whose health has been assessed by a traditional Chinese medicine doctor, and people with mild symptoms and one of the following risk factors: unstable hypertension, peptic ulcer hemorrhaging or mental illness, he said.
Required procedures are in progress, so the exact date of implementation is unclear, but the center would try to resolve the issue as soon as possible, Lo said.
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