The commander of the Epidemic Command Center Chen Shizhong let go for the first time today. Taiwan had originally planned to purchase 5 million doses of vaccine from German BNT. Regarding the opacity that has been repeatedly criticized by the outside world, “I have trouble saying.”
Shocking details emerged as China using its political clout to stop Taiwan’s 5 million COVID-19 vaccine imports. Taiwan reports that 5 million Covid‑19 vaccines ordered from Pfizer–BioNTech last year have been “intercepted” due to “Chinese political intervention.”
A moreover greater concern for Taiwan is whether it should use unreliable Chinese vaccine due to Chinese arms twisting. Chen Shizhong, the commander of the Central Epidemic Command Center, said that Chinese vaccines are not on the COVAX list or Taiwan’s purchase list. After all, many of the three-phase trials of Chinese vaccines are been released in the public domain, and Taiwan has no way of understanding the technical information. At this point, so far China has not indicated that it will provide vaccines to Taiwan.
The global pandemic Chinese Wuhan virus (coronavirus disease 2019, COVID-19) epidemic continues to spread. Countries are stepping up efforts to develop vaccines, hoping to return to normal life as soon as possible. In addition to developing domestic vaccines by itself, Taiwan is also actively negotiating to purchase vaccines from major international manufacturers.
Chen Shizhong announced as early as last year that Taiwan is expected to negotiate international purchases deal of 20 million doses of vaccines, of which about 5 million doses will be obtained through the Wuhan Pneumonia Vaccine Global Acquisition Mechanism (COVAX), and 10 million doses of AZ vaccine and 5 million “other brands” “Vaccines, but what brand the 5 million doses of vaccine Taiwan could sign is the latest headache for the country.
In an interview with the radio station this morning, Chen Shizhong confirmed for the first time that these 5 million doses are Pfizer’s BNT vaccine. As early as last year, Taiwan had directly negotiated with the German BioNTech company to purchase 5 million doses of the vaccine. Because the German BioNTech company will be the agent of the Greater China region including Taiwan. Germany also supplied millions of vaccine to China itself.
The deal was authorized to China’s Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Company. During the negotiation process, Taiwan was worried about the intervention of external forces and has not yet announced the deal for 5 million doses.
Chen Shizhong said that at the end of last year, the signing of the contract was imminent and the two parties were already reviewing the press releases. Unexpectedly, the other party was anxious on the eve of the signing. Stepping on the brakes must mean “Some people don’t want Taiwan to be happy and survive the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Since then, Chen Shizhong has been frequently criticized by outsiders for not being transparent enough on vaccine issues. He smiled bitterly: “I have trouble saying the reason(China).” The contract has not been signed so far, so there is no issue of breaking the contract, but he admitted that this has indeed disrupted Taiwan’s plans for the vaccine.
Looking forward to 2021, Chen Shizhong said that vaccines and antiviral drugs are both very important topics this year. Taiwan had advanced in deployments as early as March last year. Setting up a vaccine group in the research and development team. And contacting the original manufacturers of various countries in June, hoping to provide more Further information was used to negotiate the purchase of vaccines in 2020.
At that time, many vaccines only had animal testing and phase I clinical trial data. On the one hand, the command centre agreed to the expert’s opinions on the four types of vaccines plan and was also prepared for the legal procedures for vaccine purchase. (Editor: Chen Zhengwei, CNA)
