China has showcased its homegrown coronavirus vaccines for the first time, as the country where the contagion was discovered seeks to shape the narrative surrounding the pandemic. There are high hopes for the small vials of liquid on display at a Beijing trade fair this week: vaccine candidates produced by Chinese companies Sinovac Biotech and Sinopharm. Neither have hit the market yet, but manufacturers expect them to be approved after major phase 3 testing later in the year. A Sinovac representative told AFP that his company had already “completed the construction of a vaccine factory” capable of producing 300 million doses a year. On Monday, people at the fair huddled around booths displaying potential game-changing vaccines. China, facing a storm of foreign criticism for its early handling of the pandemic, has been trying to reuse the Covid-19 story. State media and officials now emphasize the rebirth of Wuhan, the central Chinese city where the deadly pathogen emerged, as a success story in the fight against the virus.
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