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.
Two US House of Representatives committees yesterday condemned China’s attempt to orchestrate a crash involving Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim’s (蕭美琴) car when she visited the Czech Republic last year as vice president-elect. Czech local media in March last year reported that a Chinese diplomat had run a red light while following Hsiao’s car from the airport, and Czech intelligence last week told local media that Chinese diplomats and agents had also planned to stage a demonstrative car collision. Hsiao on Saturday shared a Reuters news report on the incident through her account on social media platform X and wrote: “I
‘BUILDING PARTNERSHIPS’: The US military’s aim is to continue to make any potential Chinese invasion more difficult than it already is, US General Ronald Clark said The likelihood of China invading Taiwan without contest is “very, very small” because the Taiwan Strait is under constant surveillance by multiple countries, a US general has said. General Ronald Clark, commanding officer of US Army Pacific (USARPAC), the US Army’s largest service component command, made the remarks during a dialogue hosted on Friday by Washington-based think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Asked by the event host what the Chinese military has learned from its US counterpart over the years, Clark said that the first lesson is that the skill and will of US service members are “unmatched.” The second
STANDING TOGETHER: Amid China’s increasingly aggressive activities, nations must join forces in detecting and dealing with incursions, a Taiwanese official said Two senior Philippine officials and one former official yesterday attended the Taiwan International Ocean Forum in Taipei, the first high-level visit since the Philippines in April lifted a ban on such travel to Taiwan. The Ocean Affairs Council hosted the two-day event at the National Taiwan University Hospital International Convention Center. Philippine Navy spokesman Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad, Coast Guard spokesman Grand Commodore Jay Tarriela and former Philippine Presidential Communications Office assistant secretary Michel del Rosario participated in the forum. More than 100 officials, experts and entrepreneurs from 15 nations participated in the forum, which included discussions on countering China’s hybrid warfare
MORE DEMOCRACY: The only solution to Taiwan’s current democratic issues involves more democracy, including Constitutional Court rulings and citizens exercising their civil rights , Lai said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is not the “motherland” of the Republic of China (ROC) and has never owned Taiwan, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday. The speech was the third in a series of 10 that Lai is scheduled to deliver across Taiwan. Taiwan is facing external threats from China, Lai said at a Lions Clubs International banquet in Hsinchu. For example, on June 21 the army detected 12 Chinese aircraft, eight of which entered Taiwanese waters, as well as six Chinese warships that remained in the waters around Taiwan, he said. Beyond military and political intimidation, Taiwan
RSS