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Vaccines, more than 45 countries in the world depend on Chinese sera
The plane loaded with vaccines had just made a stopover at the Santiago airport at the end of January and the president of Chile, Sebastián Piñera, was beaming. “Today – he said – is a day of joy, excitement and hope.” The source of that hope: China, a country that Chile and dozens of other nations depend on to help save them from the Covid-19 pandemic.
China’s diplomatic vaccine campaign was a surprising success, promising about 500 million doses of its vaccine to more than 45 countries, according to a country-by-country count by the Associated Press. With only four of China’s many vaccine manufacturers capable of producing at least 2.6 billion doses this year, much of the world’s population will end up being vaccinated not with Western vaccines that boast record efficacy rates, but with serum made in China. .
Amid the dearth of public data on Chinese vaccines, fears about their efficacy and safety remain strong in countries that depend on them, along with concerns about what China might want in exchange for deliveries. However, Chinese vaccine vaccinations have begun in more than 25 countries and doses have been delivered to 11 others, according to the AP’s tally, based on independent reports in those countries along with announcements from governments and companies.
