China supplies millions of vaccine doses to developing nations in Asia

China has been supplying millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses to developing nations in Asia in 2021. 

This past weekend, millions of doses from China landed in capitals in Southeast and South Asia including Cambodia’s capital city, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Through the last few weeks, China has sent vaccine doses to Manila, Bangkok, Kathmandu and Jakarta. 

China has developed two main vaccines, Sinovac and Sinopharm, that the country recently approved for children as young as three years old.

Cambodia is mostly using China’s vaccines and Nepal has received 1.8 million doses of them. Sri Lanka is buying 14 million doses of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine while Bangladesh is looking to buy 15 million doses, according to WSJ. 

Numerous countries are using the Chinese coronavirus vaccines for a high percentage of its vaccinations.

Half of the vaccine doses in the Philippines and 89 percent of Indonesia’s doses are from China.

The doses coming from China have helped many of the countries jump start their vaccine drives and hit goals they were struggling to make.

China is using this opportunity to form ties with the countries and attack Western countries saying they are hoarding vaccines, WSJ noted.

Western countries have only recently been moving to donate vaccines to poorer countries as President Joe Biden and other G-7 members revealed their plan to donate one billion vaccines around the world. 

Richer countries have been under pressure to donate more doses to poorer countries as richer nations have vaccinated millions of their citizens and opened their borders while poorer countries are getting hit with another wave of the pandemic.