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AstraZeneca vaccines clear FDA testing

18 March, 2021

Courtesy of ICRT

Taiwan’s Health Minister Chen Shih-chung says the government plans to begin administering the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine next Monday at the earliest.

The statement comes after the Food and Drug Administration finished carrying out seven checks on the vaccines and cleared the doses for use.

According to Chen, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) will meet with experts tomorrow to review the safety inspection data before deciding on a schedule for the vaccination roll-out.

However, the health minister is stressing that the government will ensure the vaccine is safe before allowing Taiwanese people to be vaccinated following reports of blood clots among some people who had received the inoculation in Europe.
 

CECC spokesman Zhuang Ren-xiang says the meeting will look at the reasons why some countries have suspended administration of the AstraZeneca vaccine and study any recommendations put forward by the European Medicines Agency.

The European agency is currently reviewing whether the blood clots are a direct result of the vaccine.

Taiwan received its first batch of 117,000 AstraZeneca doses on 3 March.

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