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A medical worker receives a Covid-19 vaccine at the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University on April 7, 2021 in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China.
Southern Visual | China Optical Group | Getty Images
Guangzhou, China – China has administered more than 1 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines, a milestone in the world’s largest vaccination campaign.
As of Saturday, 1,10,489,000 doses have been given to people in China, according to the country’s National Health Commission. More than 100 million doses were given in the six days through Saturday.
It is unclear how many people have been fully vaccinated because the government does not publish these numbers. But Zhong Nanshan, one of China’s top health experts attached to the NHC, said in March that the country aimed to fully vaccinate 40% of the population by the end of June.
After the outbreak of the Corona virus in China last year, the authorities moved quickly to control it and were largely successful in reopening the economy and returning life to normal. One reason for the slow start of the vaccination campaign in China earlier this year was that people did not see the urgent need for vaccination.
But the campaign has escalated since then. It took China 25 days to go from 100 million doses to 200 million doses – and just six days from 800 million to 900 million, according to state media Xinhua.
However, a new outbreak of coronavirus has occurred in the country during the past year. Since late May, the main city of Guangzhou in southern China has been battling the delta variant, which first appeared in India. It is the first time the variant has seen local transmission in mainland China.
The city reported no new locally transferred cases Sunday after mass driving testing and a local lockdown.
Two CNBC’s visited vaccination sites in the city earlier this month and saw long lines as people scrambled to get vaccinated.
The World Health Organization has approved the emergency use of the Chinese-made Sinopharm vaccine since May and the Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine since June.
China ships its vaccines to countries around the world, including Brazil, the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia. However, US and European health authorities have not allowed any Chinese vaccines for emergency use.
There have been questions about the effectiveness of vaccines made in China. Effectiveness rates for Covid vaccines have been found in China to be lower than those developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.
Chile, another Chinese vaccine recipient, released the results of a real-world study of more than 10 million people in April. It found that the Sinovac vaccine reduces deaths by 80%. However, despite being one of the world’s most vaccinated countries, Chile saw a spike in cases in April.
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