Every year, Taiwan purchases about 7 million doses of influenza vaccines. These vaccines are administered free of charge in batches, starting this month with people aged 65 or older, followed by the second batch next month for those older than 50. By the end of the year, about 5 million to 6 million doses would have been used. Starting from the New Year, vaccinations are to be opened up to anyone.
Of course, the uptake of vaccines varies from year to year. This year, due to the “immunity debt” factor, a lot of people have recently been coming down with the flu, and there is quite a strong demand for flu vaccines.
In previous years, people have wanted to be vaccinated with imported flu vaccines such as those made by French-based Sanofi or imported from Germany by TTY Biopharm, while those made by Taiwan’s Adimmune Corp have not been quite so popular.
However, as a physician, I always explain to my patients that Adimmune’s vaccine research and development is done under Japanese guidance and the quality is good. I assure them that I have been administering Adimmune’s vaccines for many years and they can put their faith in them.
Most patients are willing to accept this advice, so our first-line clinic has been doing this for many years without any arguments or disputes.
This year, a flu vaccine marketed by Taiwan’s Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corp has been added to the list. The vaccine is made by South Korea’s GC Biopharma and packaged into vials by Medigen’s pharmaceuticals factory in Taiwan, and most experts agree that it is of very good quality.
Unfortunately, due to ideological and political differences in Taiwan, some people have no faith in Medigen, while others have ulterior motives for undermining people’s faith.
Consequently, many parents and elderly people have stumbled upon Internet posts and messages that worry them. Uncertain what to believe, they would rather be safe than sorry.
At the same time, some mayors and county commissioners want to respect parents’ choices, in some cases even issuing clear instructions that schoolchildren should not be given Medigen vaccines, and this has made many elderly people even more doubtful about getting a Medigen jab.
However, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has for many years stipulated that the public cannot choose between vaccines and must take whichever is available. You might think that this year’s addition of Medigen vaccines would make things easier, but it is conversely causing more of a headache for clinics, even eroding doctor-patient trust.
The authorities have only bought 700,000 doses of the Medigen vaccine this year. Rather than making elderly people worried and afraid, making life difficult for clinics and spoiling the trust between doctors and patients, it would be better to assign the Medigen vaccines to the last batch so they could be used early next year, when free vaccines become available for the under-50s. That would come as a big relief for everyone.
The CDC should not insist that the public not be able to choose their vaccines and have to accept the Medigen jab if that is the only one available. At best that would cause widespread resentment, and at worst it would make elderly people hesitant about getting vaccinated, which would cause some of them to end up seriously ill in a hospital or even endanger their lives. It is high time for the CDC to give this issue a thorough rethink.
Wang Fong-yu is a standing director of the Taiwan Medical Association.
Translated by Julian Clegg
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
The military is conducting its annual Han Kuang exercises in phases. The minister of national defense recently said that this year’s scenarios would simulate defending the nation against possible actions the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might take in an invasion of Taiwan, making the threat of a speculated Chinese invasion in 2027 a heated agenda item again. That year, also referred to as the “Davidson window,” is named after then-US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson, who in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Xi in 2017