This photo taken on Jan 6, 2021 shows the packing line for inactivated COVID-19 vaccines of Sinovac Biotech, a Chinese biopharmaceutical company, in Beijing, capital of China. (ZHANG YUWEI / XINHUA)
GENEVA – The GAVI alliance said on Monday it had signed two advance purchase agreements with Chinese drugmakers Sinopharm and Sinovac to provide up to 550 million COVID-19 vaccines to the COVAX program.
GAVI announced in a press release that it had signed advance purchase agreements with Sinopharm for its "BBIBP-CorV" inactivated virus vaccine and with Sinovac for its inactivated virus vaccine "CoronaVac".
The new deals include up to 170 million doses of the Sinopharm shot and up to 380 million doses of the Sinovac vaccine, through to the middle of 2022, according to the statement.
The agreements, which come at a time when the Delta variant is posing a rising risk to health systems, will begin to make 110 million doses immediately available to participants of the COVAX Facility, with options for additional doses.
GAVI
Sinovac confirmed the agreement in a statement.
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"The agreements, which come at a time when the Delta variant is posing a rising risk to health systems, will begin to make 110 million doses immediately available to participants of the COVAX Facility, with options for additional doses," GAVI said in the statement.
According to the statement, 60 million doses of the Sinopharm vaccine will be made available from July through this October, and 50 million Sinovac shots will be made available from July through September this year.
GAVI, which runs the global vaccine sharing scheme COVAX with the World Health Organization (WHO) did not immediately provide details of which countries would receive the doses.
Deliveries can start quickly because both vaccines have already been granted emergency use listing by the WHO, GAVI Chief Executive Officer Seth Berkley said.
"This is yet another example of Gavi's active portfolio management strategy, ensuring the Facility has options in the face of constraints such as supply delays," he added.
A source with the Permanent Mission of China to the United Nations in Geneva commented Monday that the signing of the agreement between GAVI and the two Chinese vaccine makers is an important move showing China's commitment to treat vaccines as a "global public product."
"The Chinese government has been actively encouraging and supporting Chinese vaccine research and development companies to participate in the COVAX to provide vaccines to developing countries," the diplomat said, adding that China was willing to continue to work together with all parties to promote the fair distribution of vaccines and make positive contributions to global solidarity in the fight against the pandemic.
COVAX, which distributes vaccines to poorer countries, has struggled to meet its early commitments amid Indian export disruptions, forcing many countries to freeze their inoculation programs in their early phases.
However, its latest supply forecast shows that the program is on track to deliver more than 2 billion doses by early 2022. Sinovac and Sinopharm join nine other vaccines and vaccine candidates already in the program including those by AstraZeneca and Moderna.
READ MORE: COVAX eyes 1.9 billion vaccine doses by end of the year
The WHO said on June 1 when it approved Sinovac's shot that results showed it prevented symptomatic disease in 51 percent of those vaccinated and prevented severe COVID-19 and hospitalization in 100 percent of the studied population.
The Sinopharm vaccine has an estimated efficacy of 79 percent for all age groups, the WHO said in early May when it approved the shot.