China says it intends to provide up to 10 million doses of Chinese-made vaccines to COVAX, a global partnership that seeks to deliver safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines to the world's poorest countries.
China agreed to join COVAX last October, while the United States under the new Biden administration two weeks ago said it will sign-up to join COVAX.
The announcement Wednesday by China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not, however, specify if this provision is a donation, neither did it identify which Chinese vaccines will be donated.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said China is responding to a request from the World Health Organization (WHO), which has kept criticizing rich countries for hoarding the world's available supplies of COVID-19 vaccines.
"We hope countries in the international community with the capability will swing into action, support COVAX through practical actions, support the work of the World Health Organization, assist developing countries in obtaining vaccines in a timely manner and contribute to ... conquering the pandemic at an early date," said Wang.
China has three experimental COVID-19 vaccines that have been administered since September 2020 to more than one million Chinese under an emergency use program authorized by the National Health Commission.
The most popular of these vaccine candidates are "BBIBP-CorV" developed by state-owned China National Pharmaceutical Group (also known as Sinopharm) and "CoronaVac," a chemically-inactivated whole vaccine from Sinovac Biotech. Both are two-dose vaccines.
Clinical trials show BBIBP-CorV with 79.3% efficacy and 99.5% antibody positive conversion rate. These results are better than the 50% standard set by WHO.
China has already shipped millions of doses of BBIBP-CorV and CoronaVac to developing countries. It has either entered in purchase agreements, or will make donations, with more than 30 countries such as Turkey, which has bought 50 million doses of CoronaVac.
COVAX intends to deliver at least two billion vaccine doses by the end of 2021 and three billion in total. It's also discouraging rich countries from amassing vaccines and wants the world to concentrate on first vaccinating those at most risk, meaning the poor.
COVAX is a partnership involving WHO, the GAVI Vaccines Alliance and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, a foundation based in Norway that finances independent research projects to develop vaccines against emerging infectious diseases. COVAX has been coordinating world vaccine development since July 2020.
