The Kuomintang (KMT) recently held a press conference addressing the matter of donating Medigen vaccines to our diplomatic allies. During the press conference, a telegram from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) revealed that the administration of President Tsai Ing-wen has the intention of donating the controversial Medigen vaccines to our diplomatic allies. Chairman Johnny Chiang suggested, helping foreign countries in need is an admirable gesture, but we should not jeopardize the relationship we have with our allies and put them in a difficult position over a vaccine that is highly disputed. Our diplomatic allies have their own emergency use authorization (EUA) standards and would compare our vaccines with variety of other vaccines in the world. What if our Medigen vaccines are not effective and create health issues? Is it really worth to put Taiwan’s image and reputation on the line for a vaccine that has yet to show promising results? MOFA should come out and explain the matter.
The KMT showed a document image from MOFA regarding the matter of our allies receiving the donation of Medigen vaccines. The content proposed that the Food and Drug Administration, Ministry of Health and Welfare, verify the manufacturing of the Medigen vaccines (MVC-COV1901), that is suitable for adults over 20 years old to be vaccinated, two does in total and 28 days apart to prevent the coronavirus (COVID-19). Our government immediately drafted a plan to initiate the donation of these vaccines to our diplomatic allies. Second, to ensure that the plan is implemented to its maximum potential and our best interest, our government should consult our allies’ governments to see if they are interested in receiving our vaccines; if they do, then our government should provide them with a clear standard operating procedure of administrating the vaccines.
Medigen vaccines are merely domestically produced but not a national vaccine; this is the minimum standard by which we should abide. The review process of the Medigen vaccine EUA has been suspected that there could be harboring involved, with insufficient amount of technical and statistical information, the government should be extra careful and pay more attention. Since there is not yet any information on the vaccine efficacy, and the likelihood of not passing the review process of other countries is quite high, the Tsai administration should take steady steps and be transparent so that the public will be more open to getting vaccinated.
