Taiwan reports 13 local cases, mystery over deaths

Taiwan reported 13 new locally transmitted COVID-19 cases on Sunday after two days without any local infections. The latest outbreak has waned since it began in May, killing more than 800 people, but the good news was shrouded by several suspicious deaths after residents were inoculated with locally developed COVID-19 vaccines.

At least four people died as of Sunday after receiving Medigen vaccines which raised concerns about the safety of the vaccine. Taiwan pharmaceutical company Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corp's MVC-COV1901 is the first local vaccine against the coronavirus. The island authorized the vaccine last Monday for emergency use as Taiwan has been struggling to procure enough vaccines due to the global vaccine shortage.

Taiwan has also constantly ignored vaccine aid from the Chinese mainland, jeopardizing people's lives with a chaotic sluggish vaccination schedule.

Taiwan health authority notified that the fatal cases could be related to health conditions such as hypertension, diabetes and obesity, insisting on carrying out the inoculation of Medigen vaccine before the investigations verified what caused the deaths.

The vaccine has been embroiled in controversy as it was approved only with data from Phase 2 clinical trials. It adopted the approach of immune bridging rather than a Phase 3 clinical trial to prove its efficacy, which is an unusual method.

Immune bridging is comparing the efficacy of an approved vaccine with a trial one by measuring the concentration of neutralizing antibodies in each group of recipients. The recombinant protein vaccine has been developed in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health in the United States. The company said it will start a late-stage clinical trial later this year in Paraguay for its COVID-19 vaccine, according to Reuters.

At present, around 40 percent of Taiwan's 23.5 million people have received first vaccine shots, but less than 3 percent have had the two shots needed to be fully vaccinated.

The island's health authority said it expected to lower the alert level for Taipei and New Taipei City from the existing high-to-moderate risk of COVID-19 infection to moderate risk later this week.