Taiwan to receive 400,000 AstraZeneca vaccine doses amid Covid-19 surge
Beijing, May 19 (EFE).- Taiwan will receive 400,000 doses of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine on Wednesday amid an outbreak in the country, which recorded 275 new cases in the last 24 hours, officials said Wednesday.
The vaccine shipment will arrive in Taiwan by air from Amsterdam at about 4 pm, government spokesperson Lo Ping-cheng said.
The recent surge in Covid-19 cases has changed the minds of the Taiwanese, who were initially reluctant to get vaccinated, leading to a considerable increase in demand for vaccines, state-run news agency CNA reported.
Of the 275 new Covid-19 cases announced by the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control (CDC) on Wednesday, 267 are local infections and the remaining eight were detected in overseas travelers.
Most of the cases are concentrated in the Greater Taipei area in the northern part of the island, the CDC said in a statement posted on its website.
It is the fifth consecutive day in which more than 100 local infections have been registered. Over 200 cases were detected during the last four days.
Taiwan had so far managed to keep the virus under control but in just nine days, new local infections have gone from seven on May 11 to the 267 announced on Wednesday.
Taiwan has registered 2,533 Covid-19 cases since the start of the pandemic, including 14 deaths.
The island has a total of 1,386 active cases while 1,133 people have recovered from the disease. EFE
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