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 Japan will send 1.13 million more doses to Taiwan on Thursday,
Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi told reporters at a regular press
conference, after previously delivering 1.24 million doses last
month.
A further 1 million doses each will be sent to Thailand, the
Philippines, and Vietnam this week, following earlier donations to
Indonesia and Malaysia, Motegi said.
"True friends always lend a hand when they need each other the
most," Taiwanese Premier Su Tseng-chang wrote on his Facebook page.
In further good news for Taiwan's vaccine programme, Health Minister
Chen Shih-chung told reporters in Taipei that 620,000 additional
AstraZeneca doses would arrive on Wednesday, part of the
government's direct order from the company.
Around 10% of Taiwan's 23.5 million people have received at least
one of the two-shot vaccines. President Tsai Ing-wen said on Tuesday
officials hope to get that to up to 25% by the end of this month.
Japan has arranged to buy 120 million doses of AstraZeneca's
vaccine, with most of that supply produced by domestic companies.
Regulators approved the shot in May, but amid lingering concerns
about blood clots, health authorities have relied on the mRNA-type
vaccines made by Pfizer Inc and Moderna Inc in Japan's inoculation
push.
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 Japan has pledged $1 billion
and 30 million doses to the global vaccine
sharing scheme COVAX, but so far its donations
have been outside of that programme.
AstraZeneca doses produced in Japan have not yet
been approved by the World Health Organisation
for use in COVAX, Motegi said, so the country
has turned to bilateral deals to respond to
"urgent requests for vaccine supplies."
Japan's first shipments through the COVAX
facility are expected in the middle of this
month, with some 11 million doses bound for
nations in south Asia and the Pacific islands,
Motegi said.
(Reporting by Rocky Swift; Additional reporting
by Yimou Lee and Ben Blanchard in Taipei;
Editing by Chang-Ran Kim and Raju Gopalakrishnan)
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