Some places in China said to be facing tight Covid-19 vaccine supply
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China's massive inoculation campaign has slowed in recent days.
PHOTO: AFP
BEIJING (REUTERS) - Residents of some parts of China that are grappling with tight supplies of coronavirus vaccines have not received their second doses in time, but the crunch will ease by June as production is being stepped up, a health official told state media.
The pace of China's massive inoculation campaign has slowed, to a daily average of about 3.3 million doses in the seven days until Monday (April 19), down from the corresponding figure of 4.2 million in the week until April 12, Reuters calculations showed.
The pace of China's massive inoculation campaign has slowed, to a daily average of about 3.3 million doses in the seven days until Monday (April 19), down from the corresponding figure of 4.2 million in the week until April 12, Reuters calculations showed.
"At present, domestic vaccine supply is relatively tight, but from May, especially after June, the vaccine supply situation will ease significantly," Mr Zheng Zhongwei, who leads a team coordinating China's Covid-19 vaccine development projects, told Global Times newspaper in an interview.
Mr Zheng did not elaborate on how severe the crunch is or where the tight supply has been felt.
By Wednesday, China had given more than 200 million doses of vaccines, ranking only behind the United States, and it aims to inoculate 40 per cent of its population by summer.
Big cities including Beijing and Shanghai have widened their vaccination campaigns to include foreigners, and inoculations in some cities are far ahead of the national average, as China prioritises supplies to key provinces.
Beijing city, for example, has inoculated more than half of its 21½ million population so far.
Mr Zheng said earlier this month that China will likely have produced three billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines by the end of the year, allowing it to meet the demand in the second half of 2021.
China's national guideline allows up to eight weeks of intervals between two doses of vaccines developed by Sinopharm and Sinovac Biotech.
Local authorities should make sure the second dose can be administered within eight weeks, said Mi Feng, a spokesman of the National Health Commission.
"Avoid the situation where there's no dose following the first one," he told a news conference on Wednesday.
"Avoid the situation where there's no dose following the first one," he told a news conference on Wednesday.
