CORRECTS - Taiwan likely to introduce domestic vaccines by July

CORRECTS MISSPELLING IN PARAGRAPH ONE

By Riyaz ul Khaliq

ANKARA (AA) – Taiwan is likely to introduce two homegrown coronavirus vaccines by July as they have entered Phase 2 of clinical trials and have also shown efficacy against the virus’ variants.

Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corp. and United Biomedical said their vaccine candidates have entered the Phase 2 of clinical trials, daily Taiwan News reported on Monday.

At least 4,000 people are involved in the trials.

The report added that the potential vaccines are likely to secure “emergency use authorization in June and be rolled out in July.”

A Medigen Vaccine Biologics spokesperson said: “Antibody tests for the company’s vaccine indicated equivalent protection against the UK variant while it registered reduced potency against the variant from South Africa.”

It appeared to fare better than Moderna or Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines in this regard, the spokesperson claimed.

Hwang Kao-pin, leader of the United Biomedical COVID-19 vaccine project, said the vaccine delivered satisfactory results in fighting both the UK and South Africa variants.

Currently, Taiwan is administering AstraZeneca vaccines secured directly from the company and also through COVAX, a global facility which aims to provide equitable accessibility to vaccines worldwide.

The island nation reported three new imported cases of COVID-19 on Monday, bringing the case tally to 1,076, including 960 imported.

According to Taiwan’s Central Epidemic Command Center, a total of 1,034 coronavirus patients have recovered while 11 have died so far.