《TAIPEI TIMES》 Updated Moderna vaccine is granted authorization

/ Staff writer, with CNA

Taiwan yesterday granted emergency use authorization for Moderna’s second-generation COVID-19 vaccine for adults.

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The vaccine, which targets the Omicron BA.5 subvariant of SARS-CoV-2 and earlier strains, should be administered at least three months after any previous COVID-19 shot, the Food and Drug Administration said.

The government is expected to on Monday announce how many doses of the updated vaccine it would buy from the US drugmaker, said Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang （王必勝）, who heads the Central Epidemic Commander Center （CECC）.

The CECC yesterday reported 36 deaths from the disease, bringing Taiwan’s total since the COVID-19 pandemic began to 9,986.

The deceased were aged from their 40s to their 90s, and all but three of them had chronic illnesses or other severe diseases, the CECC said.

Twenty of them had received no or only one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, the center added.

The vast majority of COVID-19 deaths occurred this year, as an Omicron outbreak pushed Taiwan’s per capita death rate higher than in Singapore, Japan and New Zealand, which have the lowest death rates in the Asia-Pacific region.

The CECC also reported 33,819 new COVID-19 cases, the fourth consecutive day with 30,000 or more new cases, and said that 40 cases were newly classified as severe and 97 as moderate.

Among the severe cases were two children, one younger than five and the other older than 10, it said, adding that they were diagnosed with multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children （MIS-C）.

One of them has seasonal allergies, the CECC said.

The other, who has no chronic illnesses, was recently discharged from hospital after her condition improved, it said.

So far this year, 198 children younger than 12 years have had severe COVID-19, including 124 MIS-C cases. Twenty-nine children died from COVID-19-related conditions.

新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES