Jakarta, CNN Indonesia —
Two companies Taiwan, Foxconn and TSMC, have reached an agreement to purchase 10 million doses of the vaccine Pfizer from German company BioNTech for $350 million.
Each of the two companies will buy 5 million doses of the vaccine, which will then be donated to the Taiwan government. Foxconn and TSMC are the two major suppliers of Apple Inc.
Purchasing vaccines via two companies is one option from the Taiwanese government to provide vaccine needs, after months of failing to get vaccines from BioNTech.
Taiwan accused China of being the reason for their failure to get vaccines from BioNTech, even though the Taiwanese government had agreed to a vaccine purchase agreement earlier this year.
China has denied Taiwan’s accusations.
Last month, the Taiwanese government did allow Foxconn founder Terry Gou and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) to represent them in negotiating the vaccine, following pressure from the public to keep the vaccination program going.
BioNTech’s China-region sales agent, Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group, on Sunday said an agreement had been reached but had not disclosed a vaccine delivery date.
Gou on his Facebook page expressed his gratitude that the deal had been reached.
“But we must not relax, because we will continue to work hard to ensure the delivery time and quantity,” said Gou.
He said the vaccine would be sent directly from Germany.
“I believe this vaccine will help Taiwanese people increase their self -confidence and also calm in the face of a pandemic.”
Gou also said the Chinese government did not interfere in the negotiations.
“In the negotiation process after the proposal was submitted, there was no guidance or interference from Beijing officials in the process of purchasing this vaccine.”
A source Reuters The person involved in these negotiations expects the first batch of vaccines to arrive as early as early September, but he doesn’t know the number of doses.
BioNTech has not yet commented on the deal.
Previously, the drama of Taiwan’s failure to get a vaccine from BioNTech had become news all over the world.
One of the largest Buddhist foundations in Taiwan, Tzu Chi, has also attempted to bring a vaccine to the country.
Apart from BioNTech, Taiwan has ordered millions of doses of vaccine from AstraZeneca and Moderna, while the United States and Japan have donated nearly 5 million doses to accelerate vaccination programmes.
According to sources ReutersTSMC’s involvement as well as unconditional donations from Japan and the US have led to global support for Taiwan, so China will find it difficult to disrupt the new agreement.
Currently, Taiwan, which has a population of 23.5 million, has only vaccinated 10 percent of its citizens with the first dose.
However, with the pandemic control program in place, the conditions for the spread of Covid were relatively manageable. In more than a year of the Covid pandemic, Taiwan has 15 thousand cases with the death toll reaching 740 people.
As of July 12-July, Taiwan also has a daily increase of cases in the range of 30 cases/day.
(Reuters/vws)
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