Gov't Questioned for Keeping Vaccine Info Secret 薛瑞元:疫苗採購資料保存30年 並非保密

New Health and Welfare Minister Hsueh Jui-yuan answered questions from legislators. In response to concerns that the government is trying to escape supervision, Hseuh said Taiwan's COVID-19 vaccine procurement contracts are preserved for 30 years, rather than kept confidential for such a long period of time.

To protect against COVID-19, the government procured vaccines from abroad and also developed its own vaccine. It has classified information on vaccine procurement as confidential and will keep it preserved for 30 years, leading to concerns that the government is trying to escape supervision and over a lack of transparency. Health and Welfare Minister Hsueh Jui-yuan told the legislature on Oct. 6 that these official documents must be preserved for 30 years, and the prices in the contracts signed with vaccine manufacturers will be kept confidential.

Lin Te-fu, Legislator (KMT): “You keep saying that these budgets are secret, and need to be kept secret for 30 years. We've gotten authorization from manufacturers. How long will they be kept secret? ”
Hsueh Jui-yuan, Health & Welfare Minister: “For Medigen and AZ, it's five years. Five years? For Novavax, it's seven years. Seven years for Novavax? For BNT, it's 10 years.”

According to the National Audit Office, Taiwan has purchased 68.41 million vaccine doses and received 24.26 million donated vaccine doses for a total of 92.67 million vaccine doses as of September 2022. The government also purchased five million doses of the domestically-produced Medigen vaccine. Few people have opted to get this vaccine, and 1.7 million doses will be destroyed after expiring. This means that over one-third of the Medigen vaccines will be written off. Legislators said this is a huge waste of taxpayer money.

Lai Shyh-bao, Legislator (KMT): “You all have extended the validity period of the Medigen vaccine for a third time. Are you going to do it a fourth time? ”
Hsueh Jui-yuan, Health & Welfare Minister: “Probably not, because right now there are about one million doses that have expired and need to be destroyed.”

The NAO also said that the Centers for Disease Control imposed a penalty for every day that Medigen was late in delivering its vaccines. However, according to their contract, additional penalties could be claimed for delays of over 30 days but the CDC failed to do so. The NAO said the CDC needs to conduct a self-review and handle this appropriately. The CDC said it made improvements after hearing the NAO's suggestion and deducted the penalty.

挽起袖子打疫苗，增強身體保護力，為了獲得安全有效的新冠疫苗，政府採取多元外購與國內研發雙軌並行，但其相關的疫苗採購資料列密件封存30年，遭外界質疑是為了逃避監督、黑箱，上午衛福部長薛瑞元在立法院財政委員會強調這部分是公文保存的必須年限，與各家疫苗廠有各自簽訂價格保密合約。

國民黨立委林德福說道：「這些預算你們都說這是秘密，要保密30年，目前我們取得廠商的同意，保密多久？」

薛瑞元回應：「高端跟AZ的話是保密5年，Novavax是保密7年，BNT的話是10年。」

根據審計部統計，到2022年9月底止，國內採購疫苗數量6841萬餘劑，受贈疫苗2426萬餘劑，合計有9267萬餘劑，其中國產疫苗高端的採購量是500萬劑，有立委就質疑，高端打氣不如預期，如今有170萬劑效期將到要銷毀，報廢比例超過三分之一，等於白白浪費人民的納稅錢

國民黨立委賴士葆指出：「（高端疫苗）你們已經展延第3次了對吧，還要展延嗎？」

薛瑞元表示：「應該沒有了，因為現在有一些差不多100萬劑，已經屆期銷毀。」

另外，審計部則指出，疾管署辦理國內新冠疫苗採購時，雖有針對高端疫苗部分批次未能如期交貨一事開罰每日違約金，但逾期30天以上仍未履約相關違約金，卻無法依約索討，需檢討妥善處理，對此疾管署表示，經審計部提出審核意見後已改善，扣罰違約金。