Sinopharm to raise vaccine production to 3 billion per year

China's pharmaceutical giant Sinopharm will expand COVID- 19 vaccine production capacity to 3 billion doses per year, becoming the world's biggest vaccine producer for the virus, Chairman of Sinopharm Group Yu Qingming told the media.

Besides vaccine production plants in Beijing and Wuhan, the group is expanding production and packaging capacity by also making use of its institutes in Changchun,

Shanghai, Lanzhou and

Chengdu, Yu was quoted by the People's Daily.

All of China's more than 5,000 national- level lawmakers and political advisors who have congregated in Beijing for the ongoing legislative two sessions have received Sinopharm's COVID- 19 vaccines, he said.

After realizing yearly production capacity of 3 billion, Sinopharm will be the largest vaccine producer in the world, according to Yu.

Yu, also a deputy to the National People's Congress, proposed during this year's two sessions to improve domestic medicine logistics system and promote domestic medical device development and manufacturing considering the shortages in these areas exposed during the COVID- 19 epidemic, according to Yu's proposals.

So far, two COVID- 19 vaccines separately developed by Sinopharm's biological institutes in Beijing and Wuhan have been granted conditional market approval, along with another two separately developed by Beijing- based Sinovac Biotech and Tianjin- based CanSinoBIO.

Sinopharm's COVID- 19 vaccines have been approved for market in five countries – United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, China, Bolivia and Seychelles. The vaccines have been approved for emergency use in 40 countries including Serbia being the first European country and Hungary the first EU member for the inoculation, according to Yu.

Another 80 countries and international organizations have also expressed interest in Sinopharm vaccines, Yu said, noting that the group has sent more than 100 million doses to domestic and overseas markets and 60 million shots of them have been administered without serious side effects reported.