Coronavirus: People’s Liberation Army provides Covid-19 vaccines to Pakistani military
- Delivery comes after Beijing on Monday donated 500,000 doses of vaccines developed by Chinese firm Sinopharm to Pakistan
- PLA also delivered batch of vaccines to Royal Cambodian Army on Sunday, defence ministry says
The Chinese defence ministry said in a statement that it was the first time it had provided coronavirus vaccines to a foreign army.
A report by Xinhua said the delivery was made at the request of the Pakistani military, but did not say if the products had been bought or donated, or which company produced them.
China’s defence ministry said on Sunday that the PLA also delivered a batch of Covid-19 vaccines to the Royal Cambodian Army the same day.
That was the first batch of vaccines to be donated by the Chinese government to another country, it said.
Tabloid newspaper Global Times said the vaccines delivered to the Pakistani military were also produced by Sinopharm.
Cambodia becomes latest country to sign up for Chinese vaccines
In June last year, the PLA began using a vaccine on an experimental basis that had been jointly developed by CanSino Biologics and the Institute of Military Medicine under the Academy of Military Sciences.
CanSino said on Monday that its vaccine had met its primary safety and efficacy criteria during an interim analysis and final stage trials were ongoing in Mexico, Russia and Pakistan.
Chinese President Xi Jinping said last year that Covid-19 vaccines made in China would be a “global public good”.
The country has also agreed to provide 10 million doses via the World Health Organization-led Covax programme, which seeks to ensure developing countries do not miss out.
