The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday said that its plans to donate doses of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corp to the nation’s diplomatic allies are in response to their needs, after the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) called for an explanation.
KMT Chairman Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) at a news conference in Taipei yesterday showed reporters an image of a document that he said the ministry had sent to nine of the nation’s embassies on Tuesday last week.
The document says that the government is considering donating doses of the Medigen vaccine to the nation’s diplomatic allies and asked the embassies to inquire whether their host nations would be interested in receiving them.
Photo: CNA
“On the one hand, we rely on other nations to donate to us internationally certified vaccines, then on the other hand our government wants to use public funds to purchase domestic vaccines without international certification to give to our diplomatic allies,” Chiang said.
He questioned the “logic” behind the plan, as well as where the funding would come from.
Chiang also asked why the government was “in a hurry” to donate the vaccine, as it only received an emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration on Monday last week.
The Medigen vaccine is “controversial,” Chiang said, questioning whether the donation proposal was the ministry’s idea or whether it had been requested by senior government officials.
“Taiwan’s public health standards are very high,” Chiang said, adding that the government should not sacrifice the nation’s credibility.
“The government and Ministry of Foreign Affairs must come out and explain” the plan, he said.
In a statement yesterday afternoon, the ministry said that some diplomatic allies have struggled to acquire COVID-19 vaccines and have followed the progress of Taiwan’s domestic vaccines, expressing their high expectations for them.
Beijing has continued to use vaccines in an attempt to damage relations between Taiwan and its diplomatic allies, and to protect its allies from Beijing’s “diplomatic extortion,” the government had said that it would be willing to consider the feasibility of donating domestic vaccines once they are in mass production and on the precondition that domestic demand would be met, the ministry said.
To respond to the urgent needs of the nation’s allies, the ministry asked the embassies to look into the procedures for their host governments to import foreign vaccines as part of a preliminary assessment, it said.
Any donations of COVID-19 vaccines would be funded by the ministry’s foreign aid budget, it added.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS