WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A senior State Department official said on Thursday that the United States was working with Taiwanese regulators and expects COVID-19 vaccines to be delivered “in very short order” to Taiwan.
Washington has promised to donate 750,000 vaccine doses to the self-ruled island claimed by China.
“In very short order we do expect to have those vaccines on their way to Taiwan and hopefully into people’s arms shortly thereafter,” Jonathan Fritz, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for China, Mongolia, and Taiwan Coordination, told a Senate hearing.
Asked if they would be delivered within weeks, Fritz said he hoped it would be “perhaps even sooner than that”, but that he couldn’t give a specific date.
(Reporting by David Brunnstrom and Michael Martina)
