China Will Help Poor Countries against Covid-19

China announced several new measures to help developing countries tackle the COVID-19 pandemic and its sweeping impacts, pledging to contribute billion in the next three years and provide more vaccines.

Addressing the Global Health Summit via video link, Chinese President Xi Jinping urged the world's leading economies to remedy deficiencies, close loopholes and strengthen weak links in fighting "the most serious pandemic in a century."

The summit was co-hosted by the European Commission and Italy, chair of the Group of 20 (G20) this year.

The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide has surpassed 165 million, with more than 3.4 million deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

"A year ago, I proposed that vaccines should be made a global public good," Xi said. "Today, the problem of uneven vaccination has become more acute."

More than 1.1 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered globally, but over 80 percent of those were administered in high and upper-middle income countries, with just 0.3 percent of inoculations taking place in low-income countries, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), said earlier this month.

China has supplied 300 million doses of vaccines to the world; it has provided free vaccines to more than 80 developing countries in urgent need and exported vaccines to 43 countries, Xi noted, adding that China will provide more vaccines to the best of its ability.

China supports its vaccine companies in transferring technologies to other developing countries and carrying out joint production with them, he said.

China has already provided billion to help with developing countries' responses to COVID-19; it has sent...