Taiwan is banking on a homegrown Covid vaccine as it struggles to secure supplies

Taiwan is banking on a homegrown Covid-19 shot to pace up its inoculation program as the island and plenty of nations battle to secure vaccine deliveries from main drug corporations.

The regionally produced Covid vaccine from Medigen Vaccine Biologics was rolled out final week, with President Tsai Ing-wen receiving her first shot of the two-dose vaccine final Monday.

Medigen’s vaccine was developed in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health within the U.S. The vaccine — just like the one from Novavax — is based mostly on a expertise referred to as recombinant protein, which makes use of a a part of the coronavirus protein to induce an immune response.

In the previous week, round 600,000 individuals in Taiwan have been inoculated with the Medigen vaccine, the corporate’s Chief Executive Charles Chen advised CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Tuesday.

Some critics have questioned the approval of Medigen’s vaccine. Health authorities cleared the vaccine for emergency use in July after finishing solely section two medical trials in Taiwan with no accessible efficacy information.  

Chen advised CNBC that it was not doable to conduct a “conventional efficacy trial” as a result of Taiwan’s an infection fee is “so low.” Such a trial usually entails a comparability between a vaccinated group and a management group that doesn’t obtain the vaccine, he defined.

Instead, Medigen used a technique referred to as “immunobridging” to infer the vaccine’s safety degree based mostly on the immune responses in trial contributors.   

“We will say that our safety might be … the identical and even higher than AstraZeneca,” stated Chen.

Medigen stated in July that it acquired approval to conduct a phase three clinical trial for its Covid vaccine in Paraguay.

Taiwan’s inoculation program acquired off to a sluggish begin as it — like many governments globally — confronted challenges in securing Covid vaccine deliveries.

The island, with a inhabitants of roughly 24 million, has acquired greater than 10 million doses of Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines, in accordance to public information compiled by Unicef. That contains practically 6 million doses donated by the U.S. and Japan, the information confirmed.

Around 42% of Taiwan’s inhabitants has acquired no less than one shot of the Covid vaccine, of which fewer than 4% has been totally vaccinated, in accordance to statistics compiled by on-line repository Our World in Data.  

While Taiwan reported only a few Covid infections final 12 months, the island’s circumstances jumped in May. Still, Taiwan’s cumulative case complete stays comparatively low. The variety of every day reported circumstances within the island has since dropped, not like many of its Asian neighbors that are nonetheless scuffling with surging infections.

The island has reported 15,995 confirmed circumstances and 835 deaths for the reason that begin of final 12 months, the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control stated Tuesday.