People wait for their turn to get vaccinated against COVID-19 in Beijing. Photo: AP According to CNBC, within just 5 days of May, China injected 100 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to its people. Health officials hope to be able to vaccinate 80% of its 1.4 billion population by the end of 2021. As of June 2, China has injected a total of over 704 million doses of vaccine, of which half were administered in May. The total number of doses of COVID-19 vaccine that China has given to the population accounts for about one-third in one. ,9 billion doses of vaccine are distributed globally. The call to vaccinate is from all walks of life. Companies inject workers, schools urge students and teachers to immunize, local authorities urge people to vaccinate. According to Our World in Data, in 7 days, China is injecting an average of 19 million doses per day. With a population a quarter of China’s, the US only injected 3.4 million doses / day in April – when the vaccination campaign was operating at full speed. A medical worker administers a COVID-19 vaccine at a vaccination site in Shanghai, China. Photo: THX/VNA On May 30, Zhong Nanshan, the head of an expert group of the National Health Commission of China, said that 40% of the Chinese population has been vaccinated with at least one dose, and the government’s goal is to fully immunize all patients. this number at the end of June. In the capital Beijing, 87% of people have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Vaccination in Beijing is easy because there are hundreds of vaccination service points throughout the city. Vaccination buses are parked right in crowded areas such as city centers and commercial centers. However, vaccination in other areas is not as easy as in the capital. Ms. Zhou Hongxia, a resident of Lanzhou, Gansu province, said: “I started waiting in line for the injection at 9am and didn’t get the injection until 6pm. It’s tiring. When I returned, there were still people waiting.” Ms. Zhou’s husband couldn’t even schedule a vaccination. On May 31, government officials said they were working to ensure the supply of COVID-19 vaccine is distributed more evenly. Not only focusing on inoculating people in the country, China also injects its citizens abroad when donating vaccines to Thailand, part of which is used to vaccinate the Chinese before giving them to Thai people. Globally, China has injected more than 500,000 citizens abroad. Before the domestic vaccination campaign accelerated in recent weeks, many Chinese people were in no hurry to get vaccinated because China had almost no cases in the community thanks to tight border controls and mandatory isolation. Recently, China has appeared many small clusters of infection and is suppressing the cluster in Guangzhou. According to analysts, despite the uneven distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, Chinese manufacturers have hardly had problems with the scale of production. Both companies that produce most of the COVID-19 vaccines being used in China, Sinovac and Sinopharm, have drastically increased production, built new factories and converted existing factories to produce COVID-19 vaccines. . Vaccines of Sinovac Biotech (China) at a vaccination center in Bangkok, Thailand on May 12, 2021. Photo: THX/VNA Vaccines from Sinovac and one from Sinopharm have been approved for emergency use by the World Health Organization. “Where in the world can match China in terms of construction speed? How long does it take China to build field hospitals? Just a few days.” Sinovac said it has doubled production capacity to 2 billion doses/year, while Sinopharm said it can produce 3 billion doses/year. From the beginning of the year to the end of May, Sinovac produced 540 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. Government support is crucial for vaccine manufacturers at every stage. Sinopharm said that right from the start of the vaccine research, it had borrowed a laboratory at a government research center. Chinese vaccine companies largely do not depend on imported products in the production process, so the scenario of shortage of raw materials and ingredients like the Serum Institute in India should be avoided. As of June 4, China had 91,194 cases of COVID-19, of which 4,636 died.

COVAX-19 mechanism. (Artwork: ABC News) In 2020, the Mechanism of “Global Access to Vaccines Against Covid-19” (COVAX for short) was established to help all countries have the opportunity to have quick, equitable and equal access to vaccines. prevent Covid-19. However, the goals of the above initiative are being “missed” due to lack of capital and selfishness of some developed countries. Launched in 2020, COVAX aims to buy two billion doses of vaccine to distribute to countries supporting the fight against Covid-19 before the end of 2021. However, the above ambitious plan is at risk of bankruptcy when Statistics show that, so far, only 68 million doses of vaccine from COVAX have been delivered, reaching 3.4% of the plan. Meanwhile, by the end of May 2021, there were 1.5 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccine distributed worldwide, but only about 0.3% of them reached countries with low income. low input. World health experts point out that the disappointing results mentioned above are not due to the lack of efforts by the people in charge of the COVAX program of the World Health Organization (WHO), but mainly due to a lack of funding. There is a shortage of vaccine supplies, and rich countries are unwilling to share vaccines with poor countries. COVAX is intended to be a not-for-profit financial attraction structure. Accordingly, rich countries contribute financially to research many different vaccines at the same time to find some effective vaccines, and then provide them for free to 92 low-income countries who cannot afford to buy them. vaccine against Covid-19. For this mechanism to work, there needs to be enough rich countries to invest and commit to receive vaccines through COVAX. However, in reality, this initiative did not receive the necessary funds to support research and purchase the vaccine in the early stages. Even, many rich countries have signed contracts to buy vaccines individually with manufacturers such as Pfizer, Moderna, delaying the implementation of contracts for large-scale production of vaccines in 2021 under the COVAX mechanism. A major problem hindering COVAX’s vaccine supply efforts is the tight supply of vaccines. Part of the reason for this is the serious epidemic situation in India. The main vaccine supplier for COVAX is the Serum Institute of India, which is producing the AstraZeneca vaccine. However, with the outbreak of the disease, the planned supply of vaccine for COVAX had to be diverted to serve India’s domestic demand. WHO and the Global Vaccine Alliance Gavi, representing the organizations initiating the COVAX Mechanism, have just issued a statement stating that an additional $2 billion is needed to increase the coverage of immunization programs to nearly 30 million. %. To secure vaccine delivery this year and early 2022, COVAX needs the above amount before June 2 to close the supply. According to the original target, COVAX is expected to provide two billion doses of vaccine to countries in 2021 and 1.8 billion doses in early 2022. “Financial bottlenecks” are hindering goals and efforts COVAX’s vaccine delivery force. COVAX initiative managers also warn that, if the current emergency shortage of a Covid-19 vaccine is not addressed, “the consequences could be dire.” The above fact shows that COVAX’s “vaccine for everyone” and “leave no country behind” plan are being delayed. This is not only a problem of COVAX founders and managers, but a big global problem. Because, variants of this virus and new waves of epidemics can enter and re-emerge in developed countries at any time. The only way for humanity to win the current pandemic together is for governments and people of countries, especially developed countries, to share difficulties, distribute vaccines appropriately, and join hands to fight Covid-19.

AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine. Photo: AFP/TTXVN

According to the Ministry of Health, the man was injected with a vaccine produced at India’s Serum Institute. The patient has returned home and is in the process of recovering.

Earlier, Canada limited AstraZeneca’s vaccine use to people over the age of 55 due to concerns about the rare reaction. The above information is the latest challenge for vaccination in Canada.

In addition, Health Canada confirmed that it is in discussions with Johnson & Johnson about the possibility of a COVID-19 vaccine. The department has asked Johnson /Johnson for information on any cases of post-injection blood clots. The agency is also working with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other international agencies on the issue.

Although Canada has licensed Johnson&Johnson’s vaccine, the vaccines ordered will not be shipped until the end of April. Canada is expected to get enough vaccines so that by the end of June, each citizen can get one shot. However, the rate of spread of the new variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is surpassing the progress of vaccination in the country.

The number of new cases in the last week has increased by 33%, while the number of new daily infections is at more than 8,100, equivalent to the peak of the second wave of outbreaks earlier this year. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau warned more dangerous new variations were spreading rapidly and threatened progress had been made.

According to statistics worldometers.info, Canada has a total of over 1 million infections and over 23,000 deaths from COVID-19.

* Meanwhile, Australia announced that it will send Trade Minister Dan Tehan to Europe on April 15 amid reports that it has ordered more than 3 million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine made in the European Union (EU) but has not received the goods.

Under the plan, Minister Tehan will have dialogues with his German, French and EU colleagues to discuss eu production and export limits on AstraZeneca’s vaccines.

Australia is one of the countries that succeeds in controlling the COVID-19 epidemic. Since the outbreak, the country has recorded nearly 30,000 cases. However, Australia is currently behind in its vaccination campaign. As of April 11, Australia had only vaccinated nearly 1.2 million people, despite a pledge by the end of March to vaccinate 4 million people.

The Australian government believes that the EU’s non-delivery of the vaccines it ordered by AstraZeneca was the cause of the delay in the vaccination program, but state authorities pointed out that the distribution of vaccines to health facilities also contributed to this situation.

Under pressure from public opinion, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he would convene a cabinet meeting twice a week with state and territory leaders until the issue was resolved and put the vaccination program back on track.

Australia intends to vaccinate the majority of the population with AstraZeneca’s vaccine, which has imports from Europe and domestic production, while waiting for supplies from Pfizer and Novavax. The Australian government recently admitted it may not meet its target for COVID-19 vaccination for all residents next October due to import delays and new concerns about vaccine side effects.

* In Ireland, Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said the country is considering extending the vaccination period between Pfizer/BioNTech’s two doses to more than 4 weeks to maintain the vaccination progress, amid concerns that other vaccines such as AstraZeneca and Johnson /Johnson are being restricted from use due to safety risks.

In Russia, President Vladimir Putin confirmed he had given two shots against COVID-19. Speaking on television, Mr Putin expressed hope people would do the same to take care of themselves and their loved ones.

On March 23, President Putin received his first shot of the COVID-19 vaccine.

The Kremlin did not specify the type of vaccine the Russian President was vaccinated against, but insisted it was among three Russian-developed vaccines including Sputnik V, EpiVacCorona and CoviVac. In the interview, Mr Putin said he had suffered minor side effects such as muscle pain after his first injection but did not have a fever.