The government is next year to offer new single-dose pneumococcal vaccines, as well as adjuvanted influenza vaccines for some elderly people, while increasing the administration fee for young children, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday.
The Executive Yuan on Thursday last week approved the policy, which includes offering new single-dose pneumococcal conjugate vaccines, CDC Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said.
The single-dose 20-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine has already obtained a drug permit license and is marketed in Taiwan, while the license for the single-dose 21-valent vaccine is still in the application phase, but is likely to be approved in April, he said.
Photo: Tsai Shu-yuan, Taipei Times
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has agreed that the single-dose vaccines can replace the current two-dose regimens, he said.
“For recipients, [the new vaccines] provide better protection and are more convenient,” Lo said.
He said that 150,000 doses of the new single-dose vaccine have been purchased, and would be ready for administering from Jan. 15 in two phases.
People aged 65 years or older, indigenous people aged 50 to 64, and people aged 19 to 64 with high risk of invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) are eligible for the government-funded single-dose pneumococcal conjugate vaccines, the CDC said.
People at high risk of IPD include those with spleen dysfunction, immunodeficiency, cochlear implants, cerebrospinal fluid rhinorrhea, or those who have undergone radiotherapy, taken immunosuppressive agents or have had an organ transplant in the past year, it said.
In the first phase, eligible recipients would be those who have never received a pneumococcal vaccine, only received the pneumococcal 23-valent vaccine for over a year, or those at high risk of IPD who have received a 13-valent vaccine before age 65 or received both a 15-valent and a 23-valent vaccine, or are aged 65 or older and received the last dose more than five years ago, Lo said.
The second phase would begin later in the year for those who have received a 13-valent or a 15-valent vaccine for more than a year, he added.
The CDC would also purchase 200,000 doses of adjuvanted flu vaccines for elderly people in long-term care centers or nursing homes to boost their protection against the flu next year, he said.
The agency would only increase the vaccine administration fee, as many healthcare workers have expressed concern that the NT$100 per shot fee no longer covers the rising costs of administering vaccines, Lo said.
The fee is to be increased from NT$100 to NT$200 for each shot given to young children aged six and younger, and from NT$100 to NT$150 for each shot given to people of other ages, he said, adding that the new payment standard is to take effect on March 1.
A plan to include rotavirus vaccines in the government-funded vaccination program for young children has also been approved, but would be added in 2027, he said.
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