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| Medical workers administer COVID-19 vaccine doses to residents at a vaccination site in Tangshan, north China's Hebei Province, May 28, 2021. (File photo by=Xinhua/Yang Shiyao) |
[Asia News = Reporter Reakkana] BEIJING: With more than a third of the number given worldwide, China has now administered more than 1 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines, the health officials said on Sunday (Jun 20).
About 20.23 million vaccine doses were administered in the country on Saturday, taking its total to 1.01 billion, data from the National Health Commission showed.
It comes after the number of doses administered globally surpassed 2.5 billion on Friday, according to an AFP count from official sources. It’s unclear what percentage of China's population has now been inoculated, but its vaccination drive got off to a slow start after a successful fight against the virus left little sense of urgency to get jabbed. A lack of transparency and previous vaccine scandals have also led to resistance among residents. Authorities have set an ambitious target of fully vaccinating 40 percent of the country's nearly 1.4 billion people by the end of this month. Some provinces are offering vaccines for free to encourage people to roll up their sleeves.
Meanwhile, China expects to produce more than 3 billion vaccine doses this year, state news agency Xinhua reported in April. Health authorities haven’t said when China will reach herd immunity or what proportion of its vaccine doses will be sold abroad.
