China says one billion COVID-19 vaccine doses administered

A total of 21 COVID-19 vaccines have entered clinical trials in China since last year and the government has granted conditional approval for four vaccines for emergency use

PTI

June 21, 2021 / 09:46 IST

Medical workers inoculate students with a COVID-19 vaccine at a university in Qingdao, Shandong province, China (Image: China Daily via Reuters)

China said on June 20 that it has administered over one billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines in the country.

China has accelerated its pace of free COVID-19 vaccinations for the whole nation since late March and administered a billion doses by June 19, the National Health Commission (NHC) said. The NHC, however, did not say how many people had been fully vaccinated.

So far, a total of 21 COVID-19 vaccines have entered clinical trials in China since last year and the government has granted conditional approval for four vaccines for emergency use, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has granted emergency approval for two Chinese vaccines, Sinopharm and Sinovac. China has also supplied and exported the two vaccines to several countries.

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COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

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