China joins WHO-led Covax scheme to share coronavirus vaccines fairly

Name: China promises its Covid-19 vaccines will be available worldwide at a ‘fair and reasonable’ price
Uploaded: 2020-10-09T02:09:31.000Z
Duration: 1 min 8 s
Description: China promises its Covid-19 vaccines will be available worldwide at a ‘fair and reasonable’ price

Foreign ministry says Chinese vaccines will be a global public good, ‘provided to developing countries as a priority’

Along with United States and Russia, China was absent from list of 156 countries that signed up by September 18 deadline to join

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Covax aims to deliver 2 billion doses of a coronavirus vaccine by the end of 2021. Photo: AP

Sarah Zheng

Published: 10:09am, 9 Oct 2020Updated: 1:05pm, 25 Nov 2020

China has joined the global initiative for fair distribution of Covid-19 vaccines known as Covax after missing the initial deadline to join, a move that could bolster the struggling vaccine project.

The foreign ministry said China had signed an agreement on Thursday with the vaccine alliance Gavi – the public-private partnership that co-leads Covax with the World Health Organization (WHO) – to pave the way for access to coronavirus vaccines.

“We have solemnly pledged to make vaccines developed and deployed by China a global public good, which will be provided to developing countries as a priority,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said. “Even when China is leading the world with several vaccines in advanced stages of R&D and with ample production capacity, it still decided to join Covax.

“We are taking this concrete step to ensure equitable distribution of vaccines, especially to developing countries, and hope more capable countries will also join and support Covax.”

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China promises its Covid-19 vaccines will be available worldwide at a ‘fair and reasonable’ price

In a regular briefing on Friday, Hua added that the Chinese government supported Chinese vaccine developers taking part in Covax.