China keeps promise on vaccines
Developing countries breathe a sigh of relief as Beijing offers crucial supplies
COMMENT
At the opening of the 73rd session of the World Health Organization’s World Health Assembly in May last year, President Xi Jinping said that once COVID-19 vaccine development and deployment was completed in China, the vaccine would be made available as a global public good to developing countries.
That promise is now becoming a reality, with more than 50 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas having received purchases or donations of the essential commodity from Beijing. Vaccine access is deemed to be the most potent and sustainable way out of the global health crisis, yet it has remained unbalanced globally, with 10 rich economies taking up more than 75 percent of the already administered COVID-19 vaccines.
On the other hand, 130 countries have yet to receive a single dose, according to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
Thanks to its strong epidemic control experience and capacity, China is now sending more vaccines to other countries than is being administered domestically. This is a sharp contrast to countries that have engaged in vaccine nationalism, with some stocking up to four times more than they need.
China’s move thus responds to the WHO’s long-standing call for able countries to support deprived economies in vaccinating front-line workers and vulnerable parts of their populations before embarking on mass vaccination campaigns.
Due to constraints in cost and storage requirements for earlier vaccine candidates from Europe and the United States, African countries watched from the sidelines as other regions went into full vaccination mode. So the recent excitement that accompanied the delivery of 200,000 Sinopharm vaccine doses to Zimbabwe is therefore understandable.
Through China’s donation, Zimbabwe
will inoculate all its front-line health workers, with the remaining doses covering vaccinations of vulnerable groups. Equatorial Guinea and Senegal have also received donated Sinopharm vaccines, while Sierra Leone is set to get vaccines from Beijing this month.
China has also committed to supplying 10 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to meet the needs of developing economies through the WHO-led COVAX, a global initiative aimed at equitable access to the vaccines.
This is in addition to the many bilateral deals that various countries are pursuing with regard to acquiring vaccines from Beijing.
While China’s promotion of vaccine access has been viewed by some Western countries as a pursuit of global influence, the ultimate impact of vaccine nationalism by the same accusers poses a far greater threat to the world’s vulnerable.
Data from the WHO indicates that COVID-19 deaths in Africa increased 40 percent in January compared with December last year, with a fatality rate of 2.6 percent, compared with the global average of 2.3 percent. New virus mutations with the ability to spread much faster are fueling a more dangerous second wave across the continent.
Besides the earlier documented advantages of the Chinese vaccine candidates on the basis of storage requirements and cost, Beijing is now home to a single-dose vaccine with 65.7 percent effectiveness in preventing symptomatic cases and 90.1 percent efficacy against severe disease. In addition, the Sinovac Biotech vaccine has been found effective against the variants discovered in the United Kingdom and South Africa.
China must expand vaccine production and distribution facilities and processes. The cold-chain air bridge between Shenzhen and Ethiopia, as well as alternate manufacturing hubs in Egypt and Morocco, will significantly aid African access to China’s vaccines.
The understanding that no part of the world will be safe as long as some pockets of the globe are under the spell of the virus should drive an even greater international response.
In the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, a remote village that shares the same latitude as Provence is following the French region’s path to fame and prosperity through its fields of lavender.
Tourists have begun flocking to Sigong in northern Xinjiang in recent years, creating more than 1,000 jobs connected to the lavender business, local officials said.
The achievement is remarkable considering that there are only about 2,000 people living in the county in Ili Kazak autonomous prefecture. Last year, tourists made more than 200,000 trips to the area, flocking to enjoy the beauty of the blooming lavender. Sigong and Provence share similar meteorological and soil conditions that are perfectly suited to growing the flower.
“I cannot say we have completely avoided the negative impact of the COVID-19 outbreak, but we did welcome more tourists in the past two years,” said Li Zengjie, a village official.
Tourists such as Mao Zimin from Xi’an, Shaanxi province, are eager to have their photos taken in front of stretches of lavender.
“I had planned to spend the vacation with my mom in Provence before the pandemic, but as the confirmed cases of the virus grew in Europe, we canceled and visited Sigong instead,” he said.
When Mao visited the village in May, about 96 percent of the arable land was growing lavender — an estimated area of more than 800 hectares.
Like 36-year-old farmer Wang Jianping, the initial attitude of farmers was typical in Sigong who thought growing flowers was a fancy business with poor returns. Farmers also had to cope with weak returns from their established crops.
“No matter what we grew in the past, like corn, wheat or beets, the yields were only half those in neighboring villages,” said Wang, who made more than 70,000 yuan ($10,840) by growing lavender last year.
In 2014, after conducting research on the viability of the lavender industry, local authorities said plantations would not only produce lucrative oil but also attract tourists. At first, the villagers were not easily convinced.
“Without a successful precedent, most of the villagers were reluctant to invest in things they had never tried before,” Li said.
In order to set an example, Li and other village officials planted lavender on their farms. Their first harvest increased their incomes, and more than 130 households decided to join the local lavender growing cooperative to sell their flowers to local processing factories.
Fueled by China’s soaring e-commerce industry in 2018, a complete industrial chain was established to cover lavender growing, processing and sales.
“During the summer harvest season, we can deliver fresh lavender oil, which has been widely used in traditional Chinese medicine, to customers across the country within a week,” Li said.
Ninety percent of the households in the village are now growing lavender on their farms, earning an average of 25,000 yuan a year.
“That was how we built trust among the villagers,” Li said. “When we stepped forward to meet the demands of the increasing number of tourists who were looking for local accommodation, they followed.”
Before 2019, visitors could not stay for lengthy periods in Sigong as there was no tourist accommodation.
“You cannot expect that we would build a hotel in our remote village, we simply did not have the budget to do that,” Li said. But rural officials in Xinjiang have had the opportunity to visit modern, prosperous villages in coastal and eastern provinces, where the tourism industry has become a major economic force, and learn from their successes.
In 2019, the village’s decision to renovate old houses on farms near lavender fields and turn these into guesthouses was welcomed by residents. The plan also attracted talent and investors from outside.
Before tourists arrived in the village last summer, hundreds of construction
workers started renovation projects. Young designers were also invited in by a number of investors.
Designer Zhang Yi from Hangzhou, Zhejiang, first went to Sigong in late 2019. She said the beautiful scenery and lavender fields drew her to the village.
Zhang designed a Mediterranean-style guesthouse that deeply impressed 30-year-old owner Wang Haibo, who once ran a small trading business in a nearby city.
According to the local government, there are now 21 guesthouses in the village, and they brought in 2 million yuan over the past year.
The officials said there will be more than 30 guesthouses by next year, and a variety of lavender spinoff products will soon be on the market.