China administered 65 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine on Sunday



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BEIJING (Reuters) – China, which has stepped up efforts to vaccinate its population against COVID-19, administered around 65 million doses on Sunday, an official with China’s National Health Commission said on Monday at a briefing Press.

While China was among the first countries to start administering vaccines last year and exported millions of doses of its domestically developed vaccines to other countries, the vaccination rate of its own population has been lower. to countries like Israel and the United States.

China has approved four nationally developed vaccines.

The nation’s capital, Beijing, administered 10 million doses and more than 3 million people received two doses, the Beijing Daily reported on Sunday.

The country aims to immunize 40% of its 1.4 billion people by the end of June, according to state media, a target that will require China to administer an average of 4 million doses per day on average – an acceleration significant compared to the rate of less than 1. million per day since the beginning of March.

“Chinese vaccine manufacturers are still expanding, and with the continued release of production capacity, production will gradually increase,” said Tian Yulong, an official with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

He did not disclose vaccine production rate or supply levels in China at Reuters’ request.

(Reporting by Roxanne Liu and Martin Pollard; Editing by Tom Hogue & Shri Navaratnam)

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