Good news for people waiting on their second dose of Moderna. The CECC says it will release Moderna to people aged 75 and up, who have been waiting at least 10 weeks for their second shot. Not only that, new shipments are due shortly. The CECC says more than 1 million Moderna doses will come on Friday.

At this vaccination site, many older adults have turned up for their second shot of AstraZeneca, which is currently being administered nationwide.

Lee Jung-chin
FTV reporter
AstraZeneca is being administered in Taiwan’s eighth round of vaccinations. As you can see, lots of people line up here every day to get their vaccine.

Second shots of AstraZeneca are going in arms. Soon, second shots of Moderna will also roll out.

Chen Shih-chung
Health minister
On Sept. 17, we will begin distributing the next batch of Moderna. This will be administered as second shots to people who got their first shot before July 9, which is more than 10 weeks ago, and who are also at least 75 years old. The health bureaus of local governments will make arrangements for vaccine administration at medical institutions or other vaccination clinics. Recipients will be called up by their local health authority. In addition, there will be a seventh shipment of Moderna. It’s 1.08 million doses ordered from the manufacturer, and it will arrive quite late in the day on Sept. 17.

The CECC said Taiwan will conduct the world’s first vaccine mixing trial involving an mRNA vaccine and a protein subunit vaccine, specifically Moderna and Medigen. If successful, it would open up new possibilities in vaccine administration.

Chen Shih-chung
CECC
Theoretically mixing Moderna and Medigen is feasible, and it’s being studied. Once there are results on that, we will discuss the matter with experts before making a decision on vaccine administration. We don’t necessarily need to wait for researchers overseas to evaluate the mixing of mRNA vaccines and protein subunit vaccines. If Taiwan waited every time, it would never find itself at the front.

Voice of Chong Inn-wen
Kaohsiung Medical University Chung-ho Memorial Hospital
These are two different kinds of vaccine platforms. However, both of them are tech transfers from the U.S. National Institutes of Health. That is, the mRNA that encodes the S protein and the protein subunit are tech transfers. So of course, there is a chance of success.

The vaccine mixing trial hasn’t started yet, but already, media personality Jaw Shaw-kong has slammed it on social media. He said the 3 million people waiting for Moderna Dose 2 would not consent to being given Medigen instead.

Member of public
If the CECC says it’s safe and they make that an option, then I would be OK with it.

Member of public
Me personally, I’d wait and see. I’d wait to see if problems arise from vaccine mixing before making a decision.

Reacting to the option of Medigen, people on the street said they’ll wait for more data to come to light, before making a decision.