Taiwan starts inoculating public with home-grown vaccine despite criticism

Taiwan began administering its first domesticated Covid-19 vaccine amid criticism that its approval was swift. The health ministry authorized the use of the Medigen vaccine last month, although clinical studies are still pending.

Taiwan's immunization attempts have been impeded by delivery obstructions and doubts among its population. President Tsai Ing-wen led the way to get Medigen Jab on Monday.

At the time of its approval, the vaccine - made by Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corp - was still developing phase three studies but received emergency approval from controls.

The company stated there were no major protection interests, and studies have shown that manufactured antibodies are "no worse than" those produced by the AstraZeneca vaccine.

It is expected to complete the final round of studies, which will take place in Paraguay later this year.

Medigen, whose Chinese name means "high-end", is a recombinant protein vaccine comparable to the dose developed by Novavax.

The Novavax Jab practices a more conventional method to reconstruct a portion of the spike protein of the virus to spur the immune system. Novavax Covid Jab shows 89% efficiency in UK studies.

"We've done so many experiments, everyone has seen how safe our vaccination is. There are so few side effects, nearly no fever and so on. So I think everyone can be safe," said Medigen Chief Executive Officer Charles Chen told Reuters.

However, his outburst was overshadowed by accusations by the main opposition parties, the Kuomintang (KMT) that the vaccination was unsafe or that their entry into the market was urgent.

Two prominent members of the party have gone to court to revoke the emergency permit due to insufficient testing.

One of them said there was no need for Taiwanese people to be treated as "white rats in a lab".

Taiwan used Modern and AstraZeneca vaccines, but President Tsai refrained from getting her shot until Medigen Jab was finished.

The process of receiving Jab was streamed live on her Facebook page - when asked if she was nervous, she replied, "no".

More than 700,000 people have already signed up for the Medigen vaccination, which takes two doses 28 days apart.

Taiwan currently reports about 10 cases a day, and was considered one of the most successful places to contain covid.

But an eruption in May increased concerns about the appearance of the highly infectious Delta variant. Less than 5% of Taiwan's 23.5 million people are fully immunized with about 40% receiving only one dose.