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TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) – China on Wednesday announced a plan to deliver 10 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine to developing countries as part of the global COVAX initiative as part of its ambitious diplomatic and trade efforts to to distribute Chinese vaccines around the world.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said China is responding to a request from the World Health Organization as developing countries seek to fill shortages forecast through March. He did not give details of the vaccine China was providing to COVAX, or whether it was a donation.
China has already shipped a large number of doses of its own vaccines, mainly to developing countries. It has signed agreements or donations with more than 30 countries far exceeding the 10 million doses it supplies to COVAX. In Turkey alone, the Chinese company Sinovac Biotech Ltd. made a deal to sell 50 million doses.
Its global efforts are seen by many as an attempt to bolster China’s reputation as it seeks to repair its image after the first cases of the coronavirus were detected in central China’s Wuhan city in late 2019. Earlier during the pandemic, China donated face masks and protective gear to countries around the world as part of a diplomatic push. He called the virus a mutual challenge facing humanity and even suggested that it may have been brought in from outside the country.
He agreed to join COVAX, coordinated by the World Health Organization and GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, last October, especially when the United States under President Donald Trump refused to join him.
COVAX seeks to ensure that low- and middle-income countries have enough vaccines, as rich countries have bought many of the billions of upcoming doses from mostly Western vaccine makers.
“We hope that the countries of the international community which have the capacity to do so will take action, support COVAX with practical actions, support the work of the World Health Organization, help developing countries obtain vaccines by timely and will help defeat the pandemic. at an early date, ”Wang said at a daily briefing.
The WHO is in the process of approving Chinese vaccines for emergency use, he added.
So far, COVAX has only gotten a fraction of the 2 billion doses it hoped to purchase in 2021. Pfizer last month pledged to deliver up to 40 million doses of its COVID vaccine -19 this year via COVAX. The facility also has 150 million doses of the vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford.
Two Chinese companies, Sinopharm and Sinovac, have been behind much of the effort to transport Chinese vaccines overseas, which has largely taken place outside the COVAX framework. Both companies’ vaccines are inactivated, relying on traditional technology of growing and destroying a live virus. The virus is then purified before being administered by injection.
Inactivated vaccines appear to be less effective than more modern mRNA vaccines. However, they are easier to transport than Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine, which requires ultra-cold storage, a challenge for many low-income countries.
Only one of the vaccines, manufactured by Sinopharm, has been approved for general use in China. However, both have gained emergency or broader approvals in other countries and are actively used in mass vaccination campaigns from the UAE to Indonesia.
The vaccines have been criticized for a lack of transparency of data from the final phase of clinical trials. Sinopharm said its vaccine was 79.3% effective. Sinovac’s shot in particular sparked concern after it initially reported an efficacy rate of 78% for protection against symptomatic illnesses, but after counting mild cases, it reported that the efficacy was somewhat more than 50%, based on its test in Brazil.
Originally published
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