China promotes vaccine accessibility, supports scientific origins tracing of COVID-19: ambassador

MAPUTO - China has been dedicated to international cooperation on COVID-19 vaccines and the scientific tracing of the virus origins, contributing wisdom and energy to the global fight against the pandemic, a Chinese diplomat has said.

In his recently published article on Mozambique's national newspaper Jornal Noticias, Wang Hejun, China's ambassador to Mozambique, said that China has already supplied many batches of vaccines to African countries since the beginning of 2021, and that the vaccines gained a reputation as timely rain and silver bullet amid the pandemic.

"Over the course of this year, China will strive to provide 2 billion doses of vaccines to the world and 100 million U.S. dollars to COVAX for the distribution of vaccines to developing countries," said Wang, adding that China are taking those measures to fulfill its commitment to making COVID-19 vaccines a global public good.

China took the lead in providing COVID-19 vaccines to Mozambique, having provided a third batch of vaccines as a donation and delivered several more batches as Mozambique is currently battling the third wave of the pandemic, wrote the ambassador.

China will continue to work together with the international community to bridge gaps in productivity, distribution, and cooperation, and increase assistance to developing countries by improving supplies, technology transfer and joint production in the field of vaccines, according to the article.

On the research into the virus origins, Wang said that the origins tracing is a purely scientific issue that should be conducted by scientists, without interference from political factors.

Citing the WHO-China Joint Study Report on the Origin of SARS-CoV-2 published in March, Wang said that China has actively participated in global cooperation on the issue and that the report deserves the respect of all parties involved.