TAIPEI (Reuters) – Taiwan is in talks with the United States to receive part of the COVID-19 vaccine doses that US President Joe Biden intends to send abroad, the de facto Taiwanese ambassador told Tuesday. Washington, while the island faces a rare outbreak of local contaminations.
Joe Biden announced Monday that the United States will deliver at least 20 million vaccines to foreign countries by the end of June.
“We are in negotiations and we are trying to succeed,” Hsiao Bi-khim told the Taiwanese state-run news agency, adding that while such contracts fell under the authority of the Taiwanese Ministry of Health, his services had role of exchanging with the United States in order to advance these demands.
The United States, like most countries, does not have formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan but the island’s most significant international support.
Taiwan has reported more than 700 new cases of coronavirus contamination over the past week, causing new restrictions to be put in place in the capital Taipei and a certain torpor among a population accustomed to living almost normally while the epidemic was under control.
(Ben Blanchard; French version Jean Terzian)
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