The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine available in Taiwan is safe and people should still get vaccinated against the disease, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) said on Saturday amid concerns raised in the US.
The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have issued a “safety signal” for the Pfizer-BioNTech bivalent vaccine.
The CDC’s Vaccine Safety Datalink met the statistical threshold for investigating whether people aged 65 or older who got the vaccine were more likely to have an ischemic stroke in the 21 days following vaccination compared with 22 to 44 days following vaccination, the FDA said.
No other safety systems, whether in the US or elsewhere, had shown a similar signal, and “multiple subsequent analyses have not validated this signal,” it said.
“It is very unlikely that the signal in [the Vaccine Safety Datalink] represents a true clinical risk,” the FDA said, but added that it would continue to evaluate additional data.
No similar concerns have been identified with the updated Moderna COVID-19 bivalent vaccine, it said.
Wang, who is also head of the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC), said the only bivalent vaccine available in Taiwan is the Moderna brand.
He said the Pfizer-BioNTech doses administered to children in Taiwan are “monovalent” vaccines, adding that Taiwan has not yet purchased the brand’s bivalent vaccine.
Wang also said that the FDA has not recommended a change in vaccination practice, adding that Taiwan would continue to monitor the developments.
Health experts are to meet this week to discuss Taiwan’s bivalent COVID-19 vaccine policy, including which brands to purchase, he said, without elaborating.
The CECC yesterday reported 21,270 new COVID-19 cases, down 9.1 percent from a week earlier, and 31 deaths.
The deceased ranged in age from their 50s to their 90s. All but three had underlying health issues, while 16 were unvaccinated against COVID-19, the CECC said.
Taiwan has recorded 9,209,474 COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began in early 2020, including 45,086 classified as imported.
With the 31 deaths reported yesterday, the number of confirmed COVID-19 fatalities in the nation rose to 15,833.
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