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FDA allows personal imports of rapid tests
Taiwan’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says private individuals are now allowed to import up to 100 coronavirus rapid antigen tests, for personal use, without first obtaining permission.
According to administration Director-General Wu Shou-mei, the new policy has taken immediate effect and will last until the end of June and people will be allowed to import rapid tests that are not on the government's list of brands that have Emergency Use Authorization.
Although permission will not be required to import the rapid tests, they must be purchased solely for personal use and cannot be resold.
And tests that do not have Emergency Use Authorization here in Taiwan, will not be accepted by health authorities for official purposes.
This comes on the back of reports of shortages of rapid testing kits as the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) reported 57,216 new coronavirus cases.
Of that total, 57,188 are domestic infections - and that was a 12% increase from Tuesday's figure. New Taipei is continuing to report the highest number of daily cases, at 19,620. That was followed by Taoyuan with 9,751, Taipei with 8,265, and Taichung with 3,356 cases.
The CECC says that of the new cases, 60 people had developed moderate symptoms and nine had developed severe symptoms. Eight new deaths were also being reported, involving people in their 60s to 90s, five of whom were unvaccinated. That brings the death toll here in Taiwan since the pandemic began to 951.
28 new imported cases were also reported, 24 of which tested positive on arrival in Taiwan.
