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US, Japan to send vaccines to Taiwan
Courtesy of ICRT
The United States has announced that it plans to send 25 million coronavirus vaccine doses to countries around the world, including Taiwan, by the end of this month.
The White House says America will be sharing nearly 19 million of those doses through the global vaccine-sharing program COVAX.
Seven million of those doses will be distributed to Asian countries including Taiwan, India, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Papua New Guinea, and the Pacific Islands.
However, officials have not specified how many doses each country will get.
Separately, the Japanese government is set to donate 1.24 million doses of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine to Taiwan.
The vaccines will be shipped to Taiwan on a Japan Airlines flight that will arrive at Taoyuan International Airport at around 14:30 today.
The vaccine donations are part of a global sharing programme announced by Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga earlier this, which will see Tokyo donating 30 million doses of vaccines to other countries.
The Japanese government is expected to make a formal announcement of the donation later this morning.
The AstraZeneca vaccines, which will be shipped to Taiwan, are part of the stocks that are not included in Japan's public vaccination programme.
And reports are saying that Japan is seeking to play a more active role in providing vaccines to developing countries and help those countries establish cold chains for vaccine transportation in response to China's "vaccine diplomacy."
Japanese media is citing sources close to the Suga administration as saying Taiwan privately asked Japan for help on the supply of vaccines and the government agreed, considering it as a show of gratitude for Taiwan's assistance to Japan following the 2011 earthquake.
