Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen on Monday received the first dose of the coronavirus vaccine manufactured on the island by Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corp.
The vaccine gained emergency approval from regulators in July, despite fierce opposition from medical institutions and the scientific community.
Taiwanese regulators overlooked large-scale long-term studies typically used to approve vaccines. However, they compared the level of antibodies Medigen’s vaccine was able to generate relative to AstraZeneca’s, which was approved by many governments and went through the three full stages of Trials.
Medigen’s two-dose protein subunit vaccine uses a portion of the coronavirus to teach the body how to mount an immune response.
The decision to give approval based on the new rule prompted a vaccine advisory committee expert to step down.
Critics believe that granting approval before completing full clinical trials does not provide adequate information about the vaccine’s efficacy, although initial studies show promising results.
Tsai received her first dose of the vaccine Monday morning at the National Taiwan University gymnasium in Taipei. After a nurse gave her the injection, she showed an OK sign with her hand.
As of last Friday, 40 percent of Taiwan’s population of 23 million had received at least one dose of the covid-19 vaccine.
Taiwan had remained largely covid-19-free for a year and a half. However, an outbreak driven by the alpha variant emerged that spread across the island since May, prompting a large-scale blockade.
At the time, Taiwan had received only about 700,000 doses of vaccines it had purchased.
However, he was able to obtain approximately five million vaccines that were donated by Japan and the United States.
