The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) has blocked many fraudulent brokers who tried to sell COVID-19 vaccines to Taiwan without an authorized distributor certificate from vaccine makers, Minister of Health and Welfare Hsueh Jui-yuan (薛瑞元) said yesterday.
Hsueh was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of an award ceremony held by the Taiwan Foundation for Rare Disorders in Taipei.
He has previously said that Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei mayoral candidate Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) has drawn the ire of his political opponents because he prevented vaccine brokers from making money during his time in office as minister of health and welfare, and head of the CECC.
Photo: Chiu Chih-jou, Taipei Times
Asked to elaborate, Hsueh yesterday said the CECC had already signed vaccine contracts with AstraZeneca, Moderna and the COVAX global vaccine distribution platform when a local COVID-19 outbreak began in April last year.
However, as tens of thousands of cases were being reported daily in other countries, while Taiwan only had a few hundred cases, the shipment schedule for Taiwan was pushed back, he said, adding that fortunately, Japan and the US donated vaccines to Taiwan.
Many fraudulent vaccine brokers had approached the CECC claiming that they could ship vaccines immediately if the center could pay a 30 percent deposit.
However, when asked about the source of the vaccines, the brokers did not respond or were unable to provide an authorized distributor certificate from vaccine a manufacturer, Hsueh said.
“They were not really selling vaccines. I call them vaccine liars,” he added.
“We blocked the vaccine liars and assisted three agencies in donating vaccines,” he said.
The center helped the Yonglin Educational Foundation, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co and the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation sign multiparty contracts to import and donate Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine doses to the CECC, he said.
In related news, the CECC yesterday reported 16,197 new local COVID-19 cases and 43 deaths, including a two-month-old boy who did not have a chronic illness.
The boy tested positive on Oct. 25 and was found at home with no heartbeat on Nov. 10. His cause of death was determined to be respiratory failure.
Among 154 newly confirmed moderate-to-severe cases, two severe cases — a one-year-old boy and an 11-year-old girl — were identified as having multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children.
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