Equatorial Guinean President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo receives his first dose of a Chinese vaccine against COVID-19 in Malabo on Feb 15. (PHOTO / XINHUA)
Frustrated countries lagging behind global mass inoculation drives are increasingly turning to Chinese vaccines as supply challenges intensify.
On Feb 15, Zimbabwe became the latest African country to receive China-made COVID vaccines, with 200,000 doses of Sinopharm jabs secured as a gift from the Chinese government.
Zimbabwean Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga, who is also the nation’s health minister, thanked China for donating COVID-19 vaccines, calling it a “timely donation”.
“We receive this vaccine as it gave the hope to the nation that finally we may be on the verge of returning to some semblance of normalcy. That’s what we are aiming to achieve,” said the senior official.
He also said it has not been lost on them that in times of need, China’s response “has been swift”, resulting in the donations being “the first vaccine to reach our country”.
Elsewhere, poor countries on the fringes of the European Union are also directing their attention toward Chinese vaccines as they fear being left out by the richer nations.
The Republic of North Macedonia, for instance, has said that it has been in constant communication with the Chinese Embassy to buy vaccines from China.
In a joint statement on Feb 10, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore called on world leaders to “look beyond their borders” and employ a vaccine strategy “that can actually end the pandemic and limit variants”.
“Of the 128 million vaccine doses administered so far, more than three quarters of those vaccinations are in just 10 countries that account for 60 percent of global GDP,” the statement read.
Further, almost 130 countries, with 2.5 billion people, are yet to administer a single dose.
“This self-defeating strategy will cost lives and livelihoods, give the virus further opportunity to mutate and evade vaccines and will undermine a global economic recovery,” they added.
China’s medical products regulator recently approved the use of Sinovac Biotech’s COVID-19 vaccine for the general public, making it the second Chinese firm to receive such go-ahead after China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) was cleared in December.
On Feb 16, Morocco received its second batch of COVID-19 vaccines from China. The Moroccan Ministry of Health said the 500,000 doses of Sinopharm vaccines will be distributed to vaccination centers across the nation. The North African country started its vaccination campaign on Jan 28 following the first shipment of the Sinopharm vaccines.
On Feb 15, Equatorial Guinean President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo got his first dose of a Chinese vaccine against COVID-19. Obiang appealed to his fellow citizens to get vaccinated. Sinopharm’s vaccines arrived in Equatorial Guinean’s capital Malabo on Feb 10. It was the first batch of vaccine aid from the Chinese government to African countries, according to a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson.
On Feb 16, Hungary became the first European Union-member nation to receive a Chinese vaccine, comprising 550,000 doses. The shipment is enough to treat 275,000 people, health officials there have noted.
Non-EU member Serbia recently received 500,000 doses of Sinopharm, bringing the total to 1.5 million doses when the first batch was shipped last month. Serbian Health Minister Zlatibor Loncar was the first person to receive the Chinese COVID-19 vaccine. He said the Chinese vaccine is the third registered vaccine in Serbia, after the Pfizer-BioNtech and the Sputnik V vaccines.
In Latin America, Brazil has sped up preparations for manufacturing CoronaVac, the vaccine from China’s Sinovac Biotech. The Butantan Institute is working toward a goal of manufacturing 600,000 doses of CoronaVac a day, reaching more than 17 million doses by mid-March.
Bolivia said it had inked an agreement with China’s Sinopharm for half a million doses against the coronavirus by the end of February.
On Feb 12, Chilean President Sebastian Pinera received his first dose of the CoronaVac vaccine developed by Sinovac, along with those aged 71 and over. The Chilean government aims to vaccinate about 15 million people in the first half of 2021 with about 35 million doses from various pharmaceutical companies.
Mexico, which has experienced a slow start with its immunization drive, recently authorized the emergency use of China-owned Sinovac and CanSino vaccines, according to Mexico’s Deputy Health Minister Hugo Lopez-Gatell. The country also received some 870,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
In Asia, Cambodia began its vaccination campaign last week with Hun Manet, the eldest son of Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen, getting the first dose of the jab at the Calmette Hospital in the capital Phnom Penh.
“Finally Cambodia began officially the vaccination program for its people. This is the result of fruitful cooperation between Cambodia and China, the ironclad friends,” Hun Sen said on his official Facebook page.
Pakistan earlier this month also launched its vaccination drive with China-donated Sinopharm vaccines. The vaccines were first administered to frontline healthcare workers working with COVID-19 patients, followed by the elderly in the high-risk age group.
Apart from Pakistan, China is also extending vaccine aid to 13 developing countries, including Brunei, Nepal, the Philippines, Myanmar, Laos, Sri Lanka, Mongolia, Palestine, Belarus, and Sierra Leone.
In Indonesia, authorities have said that they aim to inoculate at least 181 million of the nation’s 270 million population. President Joko Widodo was among the first to receive the CoronaVac vaccine developed by Sinovac.
Xinhua reported that China will aid 38 more developing countries in need of COVID-19 vaccines and is actively participating in the WHO’s COVAX initiative to provide vaccines through this platform to developing countries.
The UAE, which in December became the first country to approve the emergency use of a COVID-19 vaccine from Sinopharm, has secured a deal to manufacture the Chinese firm’s vaccines, Abu Dhabi-based newspaper The National reported earlier.
According to the UAE National Emergency Crisis and Disaster Management Authority, or NCEMA, the Arab nation has, to date, administered more than 5 million COVID-19 doses. “Sinopharm’s clinical trials have shown that its vaccine can reduce the chances of contracting COVID-19 and prevent complications from the disease, but no one can yet determine how long protection will last. This applies to all vaccines developed to treat COVID-19,” NCEMA tweeted on Feb 16.
Apart from Sinopharm, there are three other COVID-19 vaccines in the UAE — from Pfizer-BioNTech, Sputnik V and Oxford-AstraZeneca.
Xinhua and Sergio Held in Cajica, Colombia contributed to this story.
Contact the writers at jan@chinadailyapac.com
