Taiwan makes public Medigen COVID-19 vaccine contract

Taipei, Jan. 16 (CNA) The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) on Tuesday published the contract it used to purchase the COVID-19 vaccine made by Taiwan-based Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corp. in 2021, in an effort to put an end to ongoing accusations that the deal lacked transparency.

The 58-page document was made public after Medigen's board of directors passed a resolution authorizing the government to do so, CDC Director General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) said at an afternoon press conference.

Chuang said the contract showed that the purchase was carried out according to the law and international norms, and that its stipulated confidentiality period was 5 years -- not the 30 years that some critics claimed in the run-up to Taiwan's Jan. 13 presidential and legislative elections.

Even before its publication, the contract had already been reviewed by the Control Yuan, the National Audit Office, and the Legislature, none of which found evidence of any illegal behavior, Chuang said.

Under the May 2021 contract, Taiwan purchased 5 million doses of the Medigen vaccine, of which 200,000 were donations for the government's help in funding the vaccine's development.

The vaccine was purchased at a price of NT$881 (US$27.9) per dose in single-dose vials, and NT$810 per dose in multi-dose vials, the CDC said.

The vaccine was ultimately rolled out in August 2021, but never really caught on. Of the 5 million doses supplied, 68 percent were used, while the remaining 1.6 million expired and were destroyed, with the government saying Medigen's role had concluded.

In testimony at the Legislature last week, Health Minister Hsueh Jui-yuan (薛瑞元) said Taiwan's COVID-19 vaccine contracts with Medigen and Astra-Zeneca both have a five-year confidentiality period, while its contracts with Novavax and BioNTech have confidentiality periods of seven and 10 years, respectively.

Moderna, however, required that its vaccine contract with Taiwan remain confidential indefinitely, according to Hsueh.