Taiwan took delivery of 1.4615 million doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine on Thursday, the last shipment in its total order for 10 million doses, according to the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC).

The 1.4615 million doses, which arrived at Taoyuan International Airport on a China Airlines flight at 3:12 p.m, will expire on May 31, the CECC said.

With that shipment, Taiwan has now taken delivery of all 10 million doses it ordered from the British-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, Health Minister Chen Shih-chung (???) said at a CECC press briefing.

The first shipment of the AstraZeneca to Taiwan, on March 3, 2021, was also the first batch of COVID-19 vaccines supplied to the country.

On the question of whether the latest shipment would be fully utilized before the expiration date, Chen said that even if the doses are not administered right away, they may prove useful.

“There is a possibility that we will not use it all, but it’s hard to say,” Chen said. “AstraZeneca might prove to be the most effective vaccine against some new variant that emerges, so it’s better to be prepared.”

To date, Taiwan has received 39.4 million COVID-19 vaccine doses in total, including the mRNA vaccines Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech brands, which have become the more popular choices among people in the country. Taiwan has also rolled out a locally developed vaccine Medigen, but uptake has been slow.

To date, 80.48 percent of Taiwan’s population of 23.37 million has received one COVID-19 vaccine shot, while 71.55 percent has gotten two doses. An additional 3.65 percent has received a third jab, in the form of an additional dose or a booster, CECC data shows.

Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel