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Germany’s BioNTech said Wednesday it would provide its COVID-19 vaccine to Taiwan after the island’s health minister implied a deal to buy 5 million doses had been scuttled for political reasons.
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung said earlier Wednesday that Taiwan officials had been prepared to announce the deal in December when BioNTech suddenly pulled out.
Chen, speaking in a radio interview, did not directly mention Chinese involvement, but implied that external political pressure could have hampered the deal, saying “certain people don’t want Taiwan to be too happy.”
Taiwan paid for the doses at the end of November, Chen said, but the deal fell through due to the involvement of the Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Company, which develops COVID-19 vaccines using BioNTech technology in China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan.