China's COVID-19 Vaccine Goes Global
The DiplomatChina’s Xi Jinping has openly described his country’s coronavirus vaccine development and deployment efforts as a “global public good.” In May, the World Health Organization granted emergency approval for the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Chinese state-owned Sinopharm, a move that bolstered China’s goal of playing an active role in global inoculations. The Sinopharm vaccine is the first non-Western COVID-19 jab green lit for approval, joining vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech, AstraZeneca/SK Bio, Serum Institute of India, Janssen, and Moderna on the WHO’s emergency use list. While the European Union’s agency reviews Chinese vaccines, as well as the Russian-developed Sputnik V, Hungary became the first EU member state to approve general use of the Sinopharm vaccine in February and has since reached one of the highest vaccination rates within the EU. In April, during a conference presentation on Chinese COVID-19 vaccines and immunization strategies, China’s top disease control official Gao Fu said, “We will solve the issue that current vaccines don’t have very high protection rates.” Gao also suggested that mixing the vaccines may be a successful strategy to increase their effectiveness.