BREAKING: China Starts Vaccinating Foreigners Against COVID-19
8 Minute Read
• China started offering domestic Covid vaccine to diplomats, journalists, Chinese company employees, and several groups of foreign students and teachers.
• Our reporters have also learnt first hand from foreign pilots in China, that they have received the jab - along with university professors and people working in cities' Software Parks. It is important to note, that these vaccinations are through people's employers.
Infograph: Pripette.labs. Last updated 14/02/2021.
China begins vaccinating foreigners
China has for the first time offered a Covid-19 vaccination option to diplomats, foreigners working in Chinese companies as well as foreign journalists, months after it began to inoculate its own citizens under emergency laws. Foreigners working in international aid companies have also been given the option to take a shot of a Chinese-made vaccine, HT learnt. Family members in the age group of 18-59 years are included in the offer.
Beijing rolled out vaccinations for its own citizens, mostly for frontline workers, in health care, customs and specific industries that the government selected under emergency laws in July last year, but it was for the first time, earlier this month, that the government reached out to foreign missions, companies and journalists through the Chinese ministry of foreign affairs.
The vaccine being offered is the inactivated Sars-CoV-2 vaccine, developed by Sinopharm’s China National Biotec Group, which has been granted conditional market approval by China’s National Medical Products Administration.
The two shots - the second to be taken after 21 days - will cost about 90-100 yuan each. Diplomats, HT spoke to, said they were weighing the option whether to take the shot. Indians working in the service industries such as restaurants have also been offered the option though their employers. The World Health Organization (WHO) is yet to approve the vaccine, or for that matter, any of the other four jabs given the green signal by the Chinese government.
A Chinese foreign ministry email to expat journalists sent out on Wednesday outlined the offer. “In order to facilitate the work and life of foreign journalists based in Beijing, the information department of the ministry of foreign affairs will provide facilitation and assistance for the vaccination of foreign journalists in Beijing (including their accompanying family members) who are within the eligible age group (from 18 to 59 years old),” the notice said.
China is yet to approve any Covid-19 vaccine developed by Western drug makers; five domestic ones are currently approved in China. China, according to government officials at a press briefing on Monday in Beijing, has administered 64.98 million doses of vaccines. The country aims to vaccinate 80% of its population by mid-2022.
Foreign students and teachers inoculated in Wuhan
Pakistani student Muhammad Sultan Irshad got his first shot of COVID-19 vaccine at the campus hospital of Hubei University in Wuhan. He was one of 12 foreign students at the university who volunteered to get vaccinated that day.
"On Tuesday, foreign students and teachers were vaccinated free of charge, based on the needs of prevention and control of COVID-19," Muhammed said. There are 30 international students at the university living in Wuhan, with 15 of them inoculated with a domestically made vaccine by Wednesday, the university said. The vaccination is voluntary.
Elsewhere in the city, Wuhan University released a notice calling on foreign students to make appointments for COVID-19 vaccination on Tuesday afternoon, with a QR code to scan and a form to fill out online. About 100 of its 230 foreign students applied within an hour, and family members of some students asked whether they could get vaccinated too.
Any foreigner with a passport can apply to get vaccinated in Wuhan, according to a community hospital conducting vaccination.
Sources: Hindustan Times, China Daily.
If offered, would you take the Chinese vaccine?
Lets us know in the comment section.
READ MORE
March: ALL Flights In & Out of China
China is Ready to Issue Digital Currency
China Eases 80+ Countries Ban on Entry
Chinese 'Polar Bear Hotel' Opens To Outrage
VACCINE MAP: Countries Using Chinese Vaccines