China pledges 2 billion vaccines globally through year’s end

AP | Taipei

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged 2 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines would be supplied to the world through this year, increasing China’s commitment as the largest exporter of the shots, reports AP.

Xi’s announcement was delivered at the International Forum on COVID-19 Vaccine Cooperation, state media reported Wednesday, which China hosted virtually.

That figure likely includes the 770 million doses China has donated or exported already since September last year, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 

Most of the Chinese shots have been exported under bilateral deals. It is unclear if the figure also includes the agreements with the COVAX mechanism where two Chinese vaccine manufacturers will provide up to 550 million doses.

Xi also promised to donate $100 million to the UN-backed COVAX program, which aims to distribute vaccines to low- and middle-income countries, the official Xinhua News Agency said Wednesday night.

Vaccine distributions have been starkly unequal, as wealthy countries now consider issuing booster shots to their citizens and poorer nations struggle to get enough vaccines for a first dose.

“Over 4 billion vaccines have been administered globally, but more than 75% of those have gone to just 10 countries,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO Director-General, at the vaccine forum.

 Hundreds of millions of Chinese shots, the vast majority of which are from Sinopharm and Sinovac, have already been administered to people in many countries across the world, as many were desperate for access to any vaccine.