The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday announced that it would procure 7,050,150 trivalent influenza vaccine doses for this year, up 35,000 doses from last year.
Public health officials in January approved the procurement of the trivalent flu vaccines in accordance with the WHO’s recommendations, the CDC said in a statement.
The CDC purchased 6,849,360 of standard flu vaccines and 200,790 enhanced immune-response vaccines, it said.
Photo: Lo Pi, Taipei Times
The CDC’s first-ever procurement of enhanced immune response flu vaccines are intended for the elderly population, it said, adding that Taiwan is the first Asian country to include the vaccine in a government-funded immunization program.
Taiwan-based Adimmune, UK-based GSK, France-based Sanofi, and Taiwan-based TTY Biopharm would supply 47.5 percent, 26.3 percent, 11.3 percent and 9.1 percent respectively of the standard-dose vaccines, the CDC said.
A reserve supply of 40,000 doses was ordered from each of the five contractors, it added.
TTY Biopharm and Sanofi would supply 60 percent and 40 percent respectively of the enhanced vaccines, with a reserve order of 15,000 from each, it said.
Public health officials awarded the contracts based on a cost-benefit analysis, the firms’ ability to make timely deliveries, supply stability, capacity for additional orders and corporate social responsibility, it said.
Standard-dose vaccine deliveries are scheduled from late September through the middle of October, while the enhanced vaccine deliveries are scheduled for late September, the CDC said.
The planning process and delivery timetables were expedited in anticipation of high public demand based on last year’s figures, it said.
In related news, Minister of Health and Welfare Shih Chung-liang (石崇良) said at a news conference in Taipei marking the opening of the Taiwan Asia-Pacific Hub for Rare Disease Innovation and Treatment that the National Health Insurance (NHI) from July would fully cover screening for diseases in newborns.
Hospitals screen newborns for 21 disorders, including 18 rare diseases, and the government provides a NT$200 (US$6.35) subsidy for the examinations, with parents paying the difference out of pocket, Shih said.
The new policy means that the NHI would fully cover the NT$750 cost of the screenings and add spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) tests to the package, he said.
The ministry is allocating close to NT$100 million to the policy, which would benefit up to 100,000 infants a year, Shih said.
Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital pediatrician Jong Yuh-jyh (鐘育志), an SMA expert, said that medical advances have made the disease treatable, if discovered in time, where previously the death rate was almost 100 percent.
Infants who received treatment before symptoms manifested had a 100 percent chance of walking unassisted at 18 months of age, he said, adding that early prognosis is critical to survival and quality of life.
An initial positive result is not confirmation that the infant has SMA and the child should undergo additional tests to confirm the prognosis, a Health Promotion Administration spokesperson said.
Medical Excellence Taiwan chairman Chen Yu-ray (陳昱瑞) said that the rare diseases hub would facilitate medical research on rare diseases across government agencies, academia and the healthcare industry.
The integration of data and clinical feedback would prove invaluable to doctors’ efforts to treat diseases, Chen said.
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