China producing more than 3B Covid-19 vaccines

The country’s current production capacity is around 5 billion vaccine doses annually

BOAO, China (Xinhua) — China is expected to produce more than 3 billion Covid-19 vaccine doses this year, an official said Tuesday.

The country’s current production capacity is around 5 billion vaccine doses annually, said Zheng Zhongwei, head of the working group for vaccine development under the State Council joint prevention and control mechanism against Covid-19.

Speaking at a sub-forum of the Boao Forum for Asia annual conference, Zheng said that, when the outbreak happened, China immediately focused on research and development for a Covid-19 vaccine.

The country chose to conduct research work on 12 types of vaccines from 10 research units across the country, Zheng said.

China will supply more vaccines globally in the latter half of 2021, he added.

Meanwhile, Chinese vaccine producer Sinovac has provided a total of 260 million Covid-19 vaccine doses to the world.

More than 60 percent of the vaccines were supplied abroad, said Yin Weidong, chairman and CEO of Sinovac, at a sub-forum of Boao Forum for Asia annual conference on Tuesday.

Sinovac has worked with foreign enterprises on vaccine research and development and has transferred its technology to co-production globally. The company especially passed on its production technology to countries that lack vaccine research capacity, Yin said.

Sinovac now produces more than six million vaccine doses per day and has been licensed for emergency use in nearly 40 countries globally, he added.

“We can produce two billion Covid-19 vaccine doses this year,” Yin said.