China’s Covid vaccines can protect the Chinese people: why foreign mRNA jab imports look unlikely for Beijing

Name: First inhalable Covid-19 vaccine available across China
Uploaded: 2023-01-07T11:29:46.000Z
Duration: 57 s
Description: First inhalable Covid-19 vaccine available across China

Vaccines in our country are safe and effective, NHC spokesman tells foreign diplomats in Beijing

Representatives from 130 countries attended the briefing, as concerns grow about Covid-19 surge in China

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The most widely administered Chinese vaccines are of the inactivated variety. Photo: AFP

Cyril Ip

Published: 7:29pm, 7 Jan 2023Updated: 1:55pm, 14 Jan 2023

China said it has boosted the effectiveness of home-grown Covid-19 vaccines, indicating the country is unlikely to approve foreign jab imports for its own citizens.

“Practice has proven that the vaccines in our country are safe and effective,” National Health Commission spokesman Mi Feng told foreign ambassadors in Beijing. “We also believe that China’s vaccines can protect the health of the Chinese people as well as people in some other countries.”

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First inhalable Covid-19 vaccine available across China

This comes as Beijing faces mounting calls to enhance transparency over its handling of a massive outbreak sweeping the country, and to use the more effective mRNA vaccines, such as those from Pfizer-BioNTech, approved in China only for resident German nationals.

China has yet to approve a home-grown mRNA vaccine, though Chinese vaccine maker CanSino Biologics has announced positive interim results for its mRNA Omicron-targeting booster dose.

While the NHC briefing with foreign envoys took place on Friday, the transcript was posted on the official social media account of the ruling Communist Party’s international liaison arm on Saturday.

Diplomats from Mongolia, South Africa, Algeria, Ecuador, El Salvador and Madagascar were among the representatives from 130 countries who attended.

Mi said China had the world’s largest Covid-19 vaccine production line – capable of turning out more than 7 billion doses every year – and had already provided over 2.2 billion vaccine doses to more than 120 countries and international organisations.