China has a challenging task in order to fulfill its self-chosen mission in the fight to inoculate the world against COVID-19.
On Aug. 5, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged that China would strive to supply to other nations, especially the poor, with 2 billion doses of China’s COVID-19 vaccines, principally Sinovac and Sinopharm.
Zheng Zhongwei, who heads medical science development at China’s health ministry, the National Health Commission (NHC) announced Sept. 2 that China had exported 1 billion doses to the world. This would leave China approximately another four months to achieve its goal, which will require the physical production of the vaccines, and also their transportation, including cold chains. Then there is the issue of transportation within countries, assembling medical staff to administer the doses, and record-keeping.
“Recently, as pushing vaccination work came to the later stage, it has become increasingly difficult,” Zheng said at a health forum. Some of that is because in developing countries, the logistics are difficult to work out.
