COVID-19 vaccinations for children six months to five years old are expected to start next month, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday, one day after emergency use authorization (EUA) was granted to Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine for children in the age group.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is to meet in the next few days to discuss vaccination procedures, said Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞), the CECC’s acting spokesman and medical response division deputy head.
The first batch of the Moderna vaccines for children six months to five years old is expected to arrive next month, Lo said.
Photo: CNA
As for whether Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine might be made available for children under the age of five, Lo said the CECC is still waiting for technical information from the manufacturer about its use for the age group.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said that the Moderna vaccine would be administered in two 0.25 milliliter doses, each containing 25 micrograms of mRNA, with a minimum interval of 28 days.
In comparison, each dose given to people aged 12 or older contains 100 micrograms of mRNA, with 50 micrograms for children aged six to 11.
Moderna said that its interim results from a study for the six months to five years age group showed a robust neutralizing antibody response consistent with that of young adults, even at the lower 25 microgram dose.
Taiwan began offering the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine to children aged six to 11 on May 2, and on May 25 started the rollout of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for children aged five to 11.
Meanwhile, the FDA on Friday also granted EUA for the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine for adults.
The vaccine is for people aged 18 or older with a regimen of two 0.5 milliliter doses given three weeks apart, the FDA said in a statement after a meeting to review Novavax quality, safety and efficacy data.
Based on an overall assessment and considering urgent domestic public health needs, experts at the meeting agreed to approve imports of Novavax vaccines in accordance with Taiwan’s pharmaceutical laws, the FDA said.
In clinical trials involving people aged 18 or older, the most common adverse reactions were tenderness or pain at the injection site, fatigue, muscle pain, headaches, general weakness, joint pain, and nausea or vomiting, with severity ranging from mild to moderate, the FDA said.
It would continue to monitor domestic and overseas vaccination safety alerts, while analyzing and evaluating data related to adverse vaccine events, and implement a safety monitoring mechanism to ensure the safety of the vaccine for the public, the FDA said.
Taiwan is likely to receive a shipment of Novavax through the COVAX global vaccine sharing initiative next month, Lo said.
The latest CECC data showed that 91.15 percent of Taiwan’s population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
The data showed that 82.6 percent has had at least two doses and 69.24 percent has received a booster shot.
TIMING: 'The CHIPS Act funding is crucial for us. In other words, if the act’s passage is delayed for too long, we will certainly need to adjust,’ chairwoman Doris Hsu said GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓) plans to start construction on a US$5 billion wafer fabrication facility in Texas in November, after passage of the US$52 billion Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) for America Act. The fab would be the largest of its kind in the US and one of the largest in the world, with a monthly capacity of 1.2 million wafers, GlobalWafers said, adding that the investment would be the first new fab in the US in more than 20 years and critical to closing a semiconductor supply chain gap. The world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier said the project, which
Samsung Electronics Co yesterday commenced mass production of 3-nanometer chips that are more powerful and efficient than predecessors, beating rival Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to a key milestone in the race to build the most advanced chips in the world. South Korea’s largest company said in a statement that it was beginning with 3-nanometer semiconductors for high-performance and specialized low-power computing applications before expanding to mobile processors. By applying so-called Gate-All-Around transistor architecture, Samsung’s 3-nanometer products reduce power consumption by up to 45 percent and improve performance by 23 percent compared with 5-nanometer chips, it said. Samsung’s push to be first
COUNTERING CHINA: ‘When democracies demonstrate what we can do ... I have no doubt that we’ll win that competition every time,’ US President Joe Biden said US President Joe Biden rebooted his effort to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) after an earlier campaign faltered, enlisting the support of G7 leaders at their summit in Germany. The Build Back Better World initiative, named after Biden’s domestic spending and climate agenda, struggled to get off the ground because not enough G7 partners contributed financially when it was unveiled a year ago, people familiar with its lack of progress said. “When democracies demonstrate what we can do — all that we have to offer — I have no doubt that we’ll win that competition every time,” Biden said during
Three to four tropical storms or typhoons are expected to hit Taiwan this year due to a weak La Nina effect in the northwest Pacific Ocean, the Central Weather Bureau (CWB) said yesterday, as typhoon season begins next month. Taiwan’s typhoon season generally lasts from July to September, with most typhoons occurring in August. Weather Forecast Center Director Lu Kuo-chen (呂國臣) told a news conference that a weakening La Nina is expected to have less of an effect on Taiwan. “The climate simulation we conducted, and those conducted by other meteorological agencies around the world, showed that the number of typhoons that