Lithuania announced on Wednesday that it will donate over 230,000 additional doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine to Taiwan, on top of the first 20,000 doses delivered to the self-ruled island since June. A Sept. 22 official statement said the Lithuanian health ministry would allocate 235,900 vaccine doses to Taiwan in the next three weeks, helping the latter to fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. “Global vaccines equity and solidarity is crucial in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte, according to the statement. The support came after a Sept. 16 request for help from Taipei’s mission in neighboring Latvia. Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen expressed her gratitude via Twitter and thanked the prime minister for the “continued support.” Lithuania is the first European Union member state to help Taiwan, which was battling a strong COVID-19 surge in June— Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Poland followed Lithuania’s lead with …