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China Joins WHO’s Vaccine Program, Filling Void Left by Trump
Bloomberg News
October 09 2020, 6:17 AM
China is participating in a World Health Organization-backed vaccine effort, stepping in to fill a void in global health leadership after U.S. President Donald Trump spurned the program.
Beijing on Thursday joined the $18 billion Covax initiative that aspires to give lower-income countries the same access to vaccines as wealthier nations, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said. Details of China’s commitment, including its amount of funding, weren’t immediately disclosed.
“Even when China is leading the world with several vaccines in advanced stages of R&D and with ample production capacity, it still decided to join Covax,” spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in a statement Friday. “We are taking this concrete step to ensure equitable distribution of vaccines, especially to developing countries, and hope more capable countries will also join and support Covax.”
President Xi Jinping promised in May that vaccines developed by China would be made a global “public good” to be shared by all. The decision could also help the country’s image following widespread criticism from abroad over how it handled the initial outbreak in the central city of Wuhan, where Covid-19 first emerged last year.
A global survey this week by the Pew Research Center found that negative perceptions of China reached record highs in the U.S. and other major economies. In nine of the countries -- including Australia, Canada, Germany, South Korea, the U.K. and the U.S. -- negative opinion reached its highest point since the nonpartisan organization began polling on the topic more than a decade ago.
“In many ways this is a soft power win for China, coming amidst a slew of negative reports in other fields in recent weeks,” said Nicholas Thomas, an associate professor in health security at the City University of Hong Kong. “It is a win made all the easier by President Trump’s impetuous decision to withdraw from the WHO and his short-sighted refusal to commit the U.S. to Covax. Now anything America does in this area will be seen as catching up to China, when the U.S. was expected to lead.”
China’s participation is a big win for Covax, as the possibility of providing doses to even a fraction of China’s 1.4 billion people would boost critical mass, enhancing the alliance’s negotiating power. A spokesman for the Trump administration last month said the U.S. wouldn’t “be constrained by multilateral organizations influenced by the corrupt World Health Organization and China.”
Covax is led by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and the vaccine alliance Gavi. It currently has nine vaccines in development and nine under evaluation in its portfolio, with a goal to secure 2 billion doses by 2021.
For China, participation would provide a de facto insurance policy that allows it access to any successfully developed vaccine. Beijing could also provide manufacturing support for a successful vaccine, regardless of which country develops it.
China has been a front-runner in developing vaccines against the coronavirus. Nine of China’s vaccine candidates have entered clinical trials, and four of them got approval for final stage Phase III clinical trials in foreign countries.
www.bloombergquint.com
Bloomberg News
October 09 2020, 6:17 AM
China is participating in a World Health Organization-backed vaccine effort, stepping in to fill a void in global health leadership after U.S. President Donald Trump spurned the program.
Beijing on Thursday joined the $18 billion Covax initiative that aspires to give lower-income countries the same access to vaccines as wealthier nations, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said. Details of China’s commitment, including its amount of funding, weren’t immediately disclosed.
“Even when China is leading the world with several vaccines in advanced stages of R&D and with ample production capacity, it still decided to join Covax,” spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in a statement Friday. “We are taking this concrete step to ensure equitable distribution of vaccines, especially to developing countries, and hope more capable countries will also join and support Covax.”
President Xi Jinping promised in May that vaccines developed by China would be made a global “public good” to be shared by all. The decision could also help the country’s image following widespread criticism from abroad over how it handled the initial outbreak in the central city of Wuhan, where Covid-19 first emerged last year.
A global survey this week by the Pew Research Center found that negative perceptions of China reached record highs in the U.S. and other major economies. In nine of the countries -- including Australia, Canada, Germany, South Korea, the U.K. and the U.S. -- negative opinion reached its highest point since the nonpartisan organization began polling on the topic more than a decade ago.
“In many ways this is a soft power win for China, coming amidst a slew of negative reports in other fields in recent weeks,” said Nicholas Thomas, an associate professor in health security at the City University of Hong Kong. “It is a win made all the easier by President Trump’s impetuous decision to withdraw from the WHO and his short-sighted refusal to commit the U.S. to Covax. Now anything America does in this area will be seen as catching up to China, when the U.S. was expected to lead.”
China’s participation is a big win for Covax, as the possibility of providing doses to even a fraction of China’s 1.4 billion people would boost critical mass, enhancing the alliance’s negotiating power. A spokesman for the Trump administration last month said the U.S. wouldn’t “be constrained by multilateral organizations influenced by the corrupt World Health Organization and China.”
Covax is led by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and the vaccine alliance Gavi. It currently has nine vaccines in development and nine under evaluation in its portfolio, with a goal to secure 2 billion doses by 2021.
For China, participation would provide a de facto insurance policy that allows it access to any successfully developed vaccine. Beijing could also provide manufacturing support for a successful vaccine, regardless of which country develops it.
China has been a front-runner in developing vaccines against the coronavirus. Nine of China’s vaccine candidates have entered clinical trials, and four of them got approval for final stage Phase III clinical trials in foreign countries.
China Joins WHO’s Vaccine Program, Filling Void Left by Trump
Beijing joined the $18 billion Covax initiative to give lower-income countries the same access to vaccines as wealthier nations.
