By Riyaz ul Khaliq
ANKARA (AA) – China said on Friday that its capacity to produce vaccines against the COVID-19 pandemic has increased to 5 billion doses a year.
At a news conference, Tian Yulong, chief engineer at the Industry and Information Technology Ministry, added: “The country has sent up to 570 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines overseas to aid the global fight against the COVID-19 virus.”
He added that over 1.4 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered domestically, Xinhua News Agency reported.
“The continued production expansion and deliverability improvement of COVID-19 vaccines have met domestic demands and supported epidemic control overseas to the best of China's ability,” Tian asserted.
China has approved 22 COVID-19 vaccine candidates for entering clinical trials in the country.
Four of the candidates, including Sinovac, Sinopharm, and CanSino, have been given conditional marketing approval, while three others are authorized for emergency use.
The fourth one belongs to Anhui Zhifei Longcom.
China has reported 92,183 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 4,636 deaths, since the first outbreak was reported in the city of Wuhan back in December 2019.