Taiwan received 458,000 doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine from the manufacturer Friday, its eighth delivery after having signed a deal for 10 million doses, according to the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC).

The batch of doses, which has an expiry date of Dec. 31, was flown in on a China Airlines flight that landed at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport at 3:37 p.m.

Since AstraZeneca’s first shipment to Taiwan on March 3, Taiwan has received nearly 3.73 million doses from the manufacturer, according to the CECC.

That first shipment led to the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines in Taiwan on March 22.

With this latest shipment, Taiwan has received more than 14.44 million COVID-19 vaccine doses from abroad, partly through supply agreements signed with manufacturers, such as AstraZeneca and Moderna, and the global vaccine sharing platform COVAX, and partly through donations from countries, such as Japan, the United States and Poland.

To date, over 10.94 million people, or 46.62 percent of Taiwan’s population of 23.5 million, have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, according to CECC data released Friday.

However, only 1.02 million people, or 4.34 percent of the population, have been given two doses that are required to be fully vaccinated, CECC data showed.

Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel