By Asmau Ahmad with agency report
China is striving to make COVID-19 vaccines more available in developing countries, and had already provided more than 770 million doses of vaccines and concentrates to the world.
China ranked first in the world in terms of vaccines offered to the international community.
President Xi Jinping said recently in a message to the first meeting of the International Forum on COVID-19 Vaccine Cooperation, that China will do its best to help developing countries cope with the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to him, China would strive to provide two billion COVID-19 vaccine doses to the world throughout this year, and offer 100 million U.S. dollars to COVAX.
President Xi said the country was marking a further step to honour its commitment to making vaccines a global public good.
Data released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as at August reported that 4, 51.15 per cent of people in high-income countries had been vaccinated, compared to just 1.36 per cent in low-income countries.
From vaccine development to vaccine application, China had always put people’s lives first, and when some developed economies were stockpiling vaccines, China adopted an open and cooperative attitude, providing vaccines to developing countries in need.
Li Baodong, Secretary-General of the Boao Forum for Asia made this known.
Chinese vaccines had been added to the WHO’s list of vaccines approved for emergency use and the COVAX programme, and had so far been approved for use in more than 100 countries, demonstrating their safety and efficacy.
In addition, some Chinese institutions joined hands with more than 20 countries in carrying out phase three clinical trials.
China also supported waiving intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines for developing countries.
