China has officially announced its collaboration with the global Covid-19 vaccine initiative which is driven by the World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday. China’s this move has made it the largest economy who will be assuring support and assistance for buying and distributing the shots.
China also had a distinct discussion with the WHO pertaining to initiate the evaluation of its locally produced vaccine for international consumption.
Not much information could be understood regarding the assistance provided by China from the formal statement released by Chinese Foreign Ministry on Friday. Though, President Xi Jinping had assured $2 billion over a period of two years in May to tackle the pandemic.
Hua Chunying, official spokeswoman from the Chinese foreign ministry stated, “We are taking this concrete step to ensure equitable distribution of vaccines, especially to developing countries, and hope more capable countries will also join and support COVAX.”
The objective of the COVAX initiative is to have ensure distribution of 2 billion doses of vaccines by the 2021 year end.
With this move, China becomes a part of the initiative which already has the participation of 168 countries. Though, USA and Russia have kept their distance from the initiative.
Hua also mentioned that China has ample COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing capabilities and will prioritise supplying developing countries when vaccines are ready.
Meanwhile, China has a minimum of 4 vaccines under the final stages of trial, two developed from China National Biotec Group and the rest from Sinovac Biotech and CanSino Biologics respectively.
