By Asmau Ahmad with agency report
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen on Monday received her first shot of Medigen COVID-19 vaccine, domestically developed by a Taiwanese firm.
The vaccine also became available to the public on the same day.
Tsai told the media that she did not even feel the needle going in and then gave an “OK” gesture and a thumbs up, state-run Central News Agency, reported.
On Monday, Taiwan began administering the Medigen vaccine and several public figures, including city council members, went for a jab to show their support of domestic vaccine production.
The Central Epidemic Command Centre (CECC) said on Sunday that almost 40 per cent of Taiwan’s 23.5 million populations have received their first jab of either the AstraZeneca or Moderna vaccine.
However, only about 3 per cent of the population had received two shots.
According to CECC, Taiwan has acquired more than 10.7 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines and more doses will be available in near future.
The availability of Taiwan’s Medigen vaccine, a protein subunit vaccine contains recombinant spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 virus, the virus that causes COVID-19, helps significantly boost the vaccination rate.
In Taiwan, tightened virus control measures adopted since mid-May to tackle a new wave of infections, which seems to be having an effect on Taiwan’s infection numbers.
For days the number of new locally transmitted cases had been under 10.
Since the pandemic began, Taiwan has reported a total of 15,926 coronavirus infections.
On Sunday, the island’s death toll stood at 828.
