Japan announced on Tuesday that it will donate an additional 1.3 million doses of coronavirus vaccines to Taiwan and other neighboring countries. The additional AstraZeneca Plc doses (approximately 500,000) will bring Japan’s total donations to the island to 3.9 million, Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi told reporters.
According to sources in the Japanese government, these vaccine doses will be delivered and administered as soon as possible. There will also be 400,000 doses for Vietnam, 300,000 for Thailand, and 100,000 for Brunei.
Japan has decided to dedicate its efforts to the global vaccination rollout, with a particular focus on the region of East Asia. The nation bordering the Pacific has contributed 30 million vaccine doses to the worldwide COVAX program while providing a further 23 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine produced in Japan to other nations.
While the AstraZeneca vaccine has been manufactured locally, Japan has relied mostly on the imported mRNA-type vaccines from Pfizer Inc and Moderna Inc during its nationwide vaccine rollout. To date, 50 percent of the Japanese population has been inoculated.
