By Ma Miaomiao

　　The third batch of of Sinovac vaccines donated by the Chinese government arrives at Manila, the Philippines on August 20, 2021 (XINHUA)

With the first batch of Sinovac COVID-19 vaccines rolling off production lines in Egypt on July 5, it became the first country on the African continent to do so in cooperation with China. The program was launched in December 2020. Local production commenced six months later and reached an output of 1 million doses within a relatively short period. 

In May 2020, at the opening ceremony of the 73rd World Health Assembly, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced that China would be making its vaccines available to the world, serving it as a global public good. "This will be China's contribution to ensuring vaccine accessibility and affordability in developing countries," Xi told the event via video link 

One year later, Xi announced new measures China would be taking to continue its support for global response at the Global Health Summit. The local production in Egypt represents one of the moves by China to boost the equal distribution of vaccines, all the while bridging the immunity gap. 

China will strive to provide 2 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses to the world this year and offer $100 million to the COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access (COVAX) led by the World Health Organization (WHO). And the $100 million will mainly go to the distribution of vaccines to developing countries, Xi said in a written message to the first meeting of the International Forum on COVID-19 Vaccine Cooperation on August 5. 

Participants in the meeting issued a joint statement, underlining the importance of vaccine multilateralism and calling on countries to enhance international cooperation mechanisms and collaboration. 

Uneven distribution 

As of August 4, 4.28 billion vaccine doses had been administered worldwide with 29.1 percent of the global population receiving at least one dose, according to Our World in Data, an online project of UK-based Global Change Data Lab. 

However, now that the introduction of vaccines has begun and their effectiveness in curbing the pandemic is apparent, how to solve the uneven distribution on a global scale has become a topic of grave importance, Li Baodong, Secretary General of the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA), said at a press conference where the BFA released a report on the global use of COVID-19 vaccines on July 29. 

Li's worry was echoed by Zha Daojiong, a professor at the School of International Studies of Peking University, saying that though the production capacity for COVID-19 vaccines can be ensured worldwide, equal accessibility remains a prominent challenge, especially for developing countries. 

For example, according to a report by WHO in April, the total of vaccines already administered in Africa accounted for less than 2 percent of inoculations across the world. Statistics from Our World in Data also show that an average of only 1.1 percent of the populations of low-income countries have received at least one dose of a vaccine. 

"The commitments expressed by some countries and international organizations to provide vaccine assistance to developing countries, however, have yet to fully translate into reality," Li said, adding that some have played up their contributions to the fight against the pandemic, with little actually having been achieved. 

The U.S. has stockpiled a huge number of vaccines, yet a gap remains between its capacity to deliver vaccines to other countries and how many it has in fact delivered. According to researchers from Duke Global Health Innovation Center at Duke University in the U.S., by the end of July, the U.S. may have a surplus of 200 million doses—or more, even. 

The Washington Post on July 13 published an article stating millions of surplus vaccines, which were supposed to be shipped to other countries, had been discarded after reaching their expiration dates. 

The vaccine distribution policy of EU countries focuses on ensuring the internal vaccination rate, Wang Wen, Executive Dean of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China, said. Exports of vaccines mainly go out to middle- and high-income countries. Nevertheless, developing countries that are relatively poor, but in urgent need of assistance, are excluded, he added. 

The Group of Seven (G7) Leaders' Summit in June promised to donate 1 billion doses of vaccines to poor countries by the end of 2022. However, this number still lingers far below global demand. WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the G7 countries' current commitment is insufficient to achieve the goal of having 70 percent of the world's population vaccinated. 

Global cooperation 

The goal of the COVAX project is to equitably distribute 2 billion doses of vaccines worldwide by the end of this year. As of July 20, it had provided 135 million doses to 136 countries and regions. However, with the frequent occurrences of virus mutations, it needs to accelerate the promotion of global distribution. To that end, COVAX urges countries to donate their surplus vaccines. 

Two Chinese pharmaceutical companies, Sinopharm and Sinovac, will provide 110 million doses of their vaccines to the project, the global vaccine alliance Gavi announced on July 12. The two Chinese vaccines were approved for emergency use earlier this year by WHO. 

According to the BFA report, China's vaccine aid and exports have exceeded the combined total of all other countries, with other developing countries constituting its primary export destinations. 

When compared with other vaccine exporting countries, China has made a far greater contribution to Latin America and Africa, the report continues. China has direct channels of vaccine distribution and cooperation with 18 Latin American countries. It has donated 1 million doses and exported nearly 280 million doses to the region. In Africa, China is exporting or donating vaccines to 31 countries. 

China is also supplying other developing countries with the raw materials for vaccines and helping them establish independent production systems. Naeema Al Gasseer, WHO representative in Egypt, hailed the cooperation on vaccine local production between Egypt and China as "a successful model for international cooperation and transfer of global expertise." 

"Vaccines stand for an industry that needs to grow on the long term," Zha said. Developing countries need to jointly improve their capacity to produce vaccines themselves, as other pandemics may follow in the future, he added. 

During the Asia and Pacific High-Level Conference on Belt and Road Cooperation in June, China and another 28 countries jointly launched the Initiative for Belt and Road Partnership on COVID-19 Vaccines Cooperation, calling for stronger teamwork in vaccine assistance, export and cooperative production. China has already delivered 350 million doses of vaccines to cosponsors of the initiative. 

According to Wang, as the existing international COVAX vaccine distribution program is not mandatory for governments, it is urgent for the international community to further explore a fair and efficient mechanism to ensure universal supply. 

(Source: Beijing Review)