BEIJING (Reuters) – China plans to supply 10 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines for the global COVAX vaccine sharing scheme, as three Chinese companies have applied for approval of the initiative, the Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.
The COVAX scheme, supported by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the GAVI vaccine alliance, is expected to begin distributing vaccines to low- and middle-income nations this month, with 2 billion to 3 billion doses expected to be delivered this year.
China’s Foreign Ministry said in January that Sinovac Biotech, China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) and CanSino Biologics applied to join the scheme.
Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, announced the supply plan at a regular news conference on Wednesday, without elaborating.
The three companies were not immediately available for comment.
The WHO, which is reviewing the requests, can make decisions about vaccines made by Sinopharm and Sinovac in March at least, according to an internal COVAX document seen by Reuters.
Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines are already being launched in several countries, including Brazil, Indonesia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.
The Cansino vaccine has been approved for use in China’s armed forces.
None of the three companies have released detailed data on the effectiveness of their vaccines to the public yet, but limited access to rival vaccines developed by Western drug manufacturers has led many developing countries to apply for Chinese vaccines.
(Reporting by Gabriel Crossley; Writing by Ryan Woo; Editing by Tom Hogue and Simon Cameron-Moore)